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BMERSON 


L  I  B  R.AFLY 

OF  THE 

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REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 


M 


REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 


SEVEN  LECTURES 


BY 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY  ALTEMUS 
1894 


ALTEMUS      BOOKBINDERT, 
PHILADBLPHIA. 


3  /4 

CONTENTS. 

.  ~;  ""    I.— Uses  of  Great  Men, 9 

II. — Plato;  or,  the  Philosopher, 41 

Plato;  New  Readings, 85 

III. — Swedenborg;  or,  the  Mystic, 95 

'    IV.— Montaigne;  or,  the  Skeptic, 151 

~:r     v.— Shakspeare  ;  or,  the  Poet, 191 

•   _yi. — Napoleon;  or,  the  Man  of  the  World,    .  225 
VII.— Goethe;  or,  the  Writer, 263 


»- 


r 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN. 


I. 

USES  OF  GREAT  MEN. 


It  is  natural  to  believe  in  great  men.  If  the 
companions  of  our  childhood  should  turn  out  to 
be  heroes,  and  their  condition  regal,  it  would  not 
surprise  us.  All  mythology  opens  with  demigods, 
and  the  circumstance  is  high  and  poetic ;  that  is, 
their  genius  is  paramount.  In  the  legends  of  the 
Gautama,  the  first  men  ate  the  earth,  and  found 
it  deliciously  sweet. 

Nature  seems  to  exist  for  the  excellent.  The 
world  is  upheld  by  the  veracity  of  good  men: 
they  make  the  earth  wholesome.  They  who  lived 
with  them  found  life  glad  and  nutritious.  Life 
is  sweet  and  tolerable  only  in  our  belief  in  such 
society ;  and  actually,  or  ideally,  we  manage  to 
live  with  superiors.  We  call  our  children  and  our 
lands  by  their  names.     Their  names  are  wrought 

9 


lo  •Reprceentatlve  Aben 

into  the  verbs  of  language,  their  works  and  dii^ts 
are  in  our  houses,  and  every  circumstance  of  the 
day  recalls  an  anecdote  of  them. 

The  search  after  the  great  is  the  dream  of  youth, 
and  the  most  serious  occupation  of  manhood. 
We  travel  into  foreign  parts  to  find  his  works, — 
if  possible,  to  get  a  glimpse  of  him.  But  we  are 
put  off  with  fortune  instead.  You  say,  the  English 
are  practical;  the  Germans  are  hospitable;  in 
Valencia,  the  climate  is  delicious;  and  in  the 
hills  of  Sacramento,  there  is  gold  for  the  gathering. 
Yes,  but  I  do  not  travel  to  find  comfortable,  rich, 
and  hospitable  people,  or  clear  sky,  or  ingots  that 
cost  too  much.  But  if  there  were  any  magnet  that 
would  point  to  the  countries  and  houses  where  are 
the  persons  who  are  intrinsically  rich  and  powerful, 
I  would  sell  all,  and  buy  it,  and  put  myself  on  the 
road  to-day. 

The  race  goes  with  us  on  their  credit.  The 
knowledge,  that  in  the  city  is  a  man  who  invented 
the  railroad,  raises  the  credit  of  all  the  citizens. 
But  enormous  populations,  if  they  be  beggars,  are 
disgusting,  like  moving  cheese,  like  hills  of  ants, 
or  of  fleas — the  more,  the  worse. 

Our  religion  is  the  love  and  cherishing  of  these 
patrons.  The  gods  of  fable  are  the  shining 
moments  of  great  men.     We  run  all  our  vessels 


TUses  ot  Great  Obcn  n 

into  one  mould.  Our  colossal  theologies  of 
Judaism,  Christism,  Buddhism,  Mahometism, 
are  the  necessary  and  structural  action  of  the  human 
mind.  The  student  of  history  is  like  a  man  going 
into  a  warehouse  to  buy  cloths  or  carpets.  He 
fancies  he  has  a  new  article.  If  he  go  to  the 
factory,  he  shall  find  that  his  new  stuff  still  re- 
peats the  scrolls  and  rosettes  which  are  found  on 
the  interior  walls  of  the  pyramids  of  Thebes.  Our 
theism  is  the  purification  of  the  human  mind. 
Man  can  paint,  or  make,  or  think  nothing  but 
man.  He  believes  that  the  great  material  elements 
had  their  origin  from  his  thought.  And  our  phil- 
osophy finds  one  essence  collected  or  distributed. 

If  now  we  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  kinds  of 
service  we  derive  from  others,  let  us  be  warned 
of  the  danger  of  modern  studies,  and  begin  low 
enough.  We  must  not  contend  against  love,  or 
deny  the  substantial  existence  of  other  people.  I 
know  not  what  would  happen  to  us.  We  have 
social  strengths.  Our  affection  towards  others 
creates  a  sort  of  vantage  or  purchase  which  noth- 
ing will  supply.  I  can  do  that  by  another  which 
I  cannot  do  alone.  I  can  say  to  you  what  I  can- 
not first  say  to  myself.  Other  men  are  lenses 
through  which  we  read  our  own  minds.     Each 


12  •Representative  Itsen 

man  seeks  those  of  different  quality  from  his  own, 
and  such  as  are  good  of  their  kind ;  that  is, 
he  seeks  other  men,  and  the  other  est.  The 
stronger  the  nature,  the  more  it  is  reactive.  Let 
us  have  the  quality  pure.  A  little  genius  let  us 
leave  alone.  A  main  difference  betwixt  men  is, 
whether  they  attend  their  own  affair  or  not.  Man 
is  that  noble  endogenous  plant  which  grows,  like 
the  palm,  from  within,  outward.  His  own  affair, 
though  impossible  to  others,  he  can  open  with 
celerity  and  in  sport.  It  is  easy  to  sugar  to  be  sweet, 
and  to  nitre  to  be  salt.  We  take  a  great  deal  of 
pains  to  waylay  and  entrap  that  which  of  itself 
will  fall  into  our  hands.  I  count  him  a  great  man 
who  inhabits  a  higher  sphere  of  thought,  into 
which  other  men  rise  with  labor  and  difficulty;  he 
has  but  to  open  his  eyes  to^  see  things  in  a  true 
light,  and  in  large  relations;  whilst  they  must 
make  painful  corrections,  and  keep  a  vigilant  eye 
on  many  sources  of  error.  His  service  to  us  is  of 
like  sort.  It  costs  a  beautiful  person  no  exertion 
to  paint  her  image  on  our  eyes ;  yet  how  splendid 
is  that  benefit !  It  costs  no  more  for  a  wise  soul 
to  convey  his  quality  to  other  men.  And  every 
one  can  do  his  best  thing  easiest.  ^^Peu  de  moyenSy 
beaucoup  d*  effet^  He  is  great  who  is  what  he  is 
from  nature,  and  who  never  reminds  us  of  others. 


•daes  of  (5rcat  Itscn  13 

But  he  must  be  related  to  us,  and  our  life  re- 
ceive from  him  some  promise  of  explanation.  I 
cannot  tell  what  I  would  know ;  but  I  have  ob- 
served there  are  persons,  who,  in  their  character 
and  actions,  answer  questions  which  I  have  not 
skill  to  put.  One  man  answers  some  questions 
which  none  of  his  contemporaries  put,  and  is  iso- 
lated. The  past  and  passing  religions  and  philoso- 
phies answer  some  other  question.  Certain  men 
affect  us  as  rich  possibilities,  but  helpless  to  them- 
selves and  to  their  times, — the  sport,  perhaps,  of 
some  instinct  that  rules  in  the  air ; — they  do  not 
speak  to  our  want.  But  the  great  are  near :  we 
know  them  at  sight.  They  satisfy  expectation, 
and  fall  into  place.  What  is  good  is  effective, 
generative;  makes  for  itself  room,  food,  and 
allies.  A  sound  apple  produces  seed, — a  hybrid 
does  not.  Is  a  man  in  his  place,  he  is  construc- 
tive, fertile,  magnetic,  inundating  armies  with  his 
purpose,  which  is  thus  executed.  The  river  makes 
its  own  shores,  and  each  legitimate  idea  makes  its 
own  channels  and  welcome, — harvests  for  food, 
institutions  for  expression,  weapons  to  fight  with, 
and  disciples  to  explain  it.  The  true  artist  has 
the  planet  for  his  pedestal;  the  adventurer,  after 
years  of  strife,  has  nothing  broader  than  his  own 
shoes. 


14  "Representative  /Ren 

Our  common  discourse  respects  two  kinds  of 
use  of  service  from  superior  men.  Direct  giving 
is  agreeable  to  the  early  belief  of  men;  direct 
giving  of  material  or  metaphysical  aid,  as  of  health, 
eternal  youth,  fine  senses,  arts  of  healing,  magical 
power,  and  prophecy.  The  boy  believes  there  is 
a  teacher  who  can  sell  him  wisdom.  Churches 
believe  in  imputed  merit.  But,  in  strictness,  we 
are  not  much  cognizant  of  direct  serving.  Man 
is  endogenous,  and  education  is  hi^  unfolding. 
The  aid  we  have  from  others  is  mechanical,  com- 
pared with  the  discoveries  of  nature  in  us.  What 
is  thus  learned  is  delightful  in  the  doing,  and  the 
effect  remains.  Right  ethics  are  central,  and  go 
from  the  soul  outward.  Gift  is  contrary  to  the  law 
of  the  universe.  Serving  others  is  serving  us.  I 
must  absolve  me  to  myself.  ^'Mind  thy  affair," 
says  the  spirit: — "coxcomb,  would  you  meddle 
with  the  skies,  or  with  other  people?"  Indirect 
service  is  left.  Men  have  a  pictorial  or  represent- 
ative quality,  and  serve  us  in  the  intellect.  Behmen 
and  Swedenborg  saw  that  things  were  representa- 
tive. Men  are  also  representative ;  first,  of  things, 
and  secondly,  of  ideas. 

As  plants  convert  the  minerals  into  food  for 
animals,  so  each  man  converts  some  raw  material 
in  nature  to  human  use.     The  inventors  of  fire, 


•Qlses  ot  Great  flben  15 

electricity,  magnetism,  iron,  lead,  glass,  linen, 
silk,  cotton  ;  the  makers  of  tools ;  the  inventor  of 
decimal  notation;  the  geometer;  the  engineer; 
musician, — severally  make  an  easy  way  for  all, 
through  unknown  and  impossible  confusions.  Each 
man  is,  by  secret  liking,  connected  with  some 
district  of  nature,  whose  agent  and  interpreter  he 
is,  as  Linnaeus,  of  plants;  Huber,  of  bees;  Fries, 
of  lichens;  Van  Mons,  of  pears;  Dalton,  of  atomic 
forms;  Euclid,  of  lines;  Newton,  of  fluxions. 

A  man  is  a  centre  for  nature,  running  out  threads 
of  relation  through  every  thing,  fluid  and  solid, 
material  and  elemental.  The  earth  rolls;  every 
clod  and  stone  comes  to  the  meridian :  so  every 
organ,  function,  acid,  crystal,  grain  of  dust,  has 
its  relation  to  the  brain.  It  waits  long,  but  its 
turn  comes.  Each  plant  has  its  parasite,  and 
each  created  thing  its  lover  and  poet.  Justice  has 
already  been  done  to  steam,  to  iron,  to  wood,  to 
coal,  to  loadstone,  to  iodine,  to  corn,  and  cotton ; 
but  how  few  materials  are  yet  used  by  our  arts ! 
The  mass  of  creatures  and  of  qualities  are  still 
hid  and  expectant.  It  would  seem  as  if  each 
waited,  like  the  enchanted  princess  in  fairy  tales,^ 
for  a  destined  human  deliverer.  Each,  must  be 
disenchanted,  and  walk  forth  to  the  day  in 
human  shape.     In  the  history  of  discovery,  the 


i6  IRcpresentative  ^en 

ripe  and  latent  truth  seems  to  have  fashioned  a 
brain  for  itself.  A  magnet  must  be  made  man,  in 
some  Gilbert,  or  Swedenborg,  or  Oersted,  before 
the  general  mind  can  come  to  entertain  its  powers. 
If  we  limit  ourselves  to  the  first  advantages; — 
a  sober  grace  adheres  to  the  mineral  and  botanic 
kingdoms,  which,  in  the  highest  moments,  comes 
up  as  the  charm  of  nature, — the  glitter  of  the 
spar,  the  sureness  of  affinity,  the  veracity  of 
angles.  Light  and  darkness,  heat  and  cold,  hun- 
ger and  food,  sweet  and  sour,  solid,  liquid,  and 
gas,  circle  us  round  in  a  wreath  of  pleasures,  and, 
by  their  agreeable  quarrel,  beguile  the  day  of  life. 
The  eye  repeats  every  day  the  finest  eulogy  on 
things — '^He  saw  that  they  were  good."  We 
know  where  to  find  them ;  and  these  performers 
are  relished  all  the  more,  after  a  little  experience 
of  the  pretending  races.  We  are  entitled,  also, 
to  higher  advantages.  Something  is  wanting  to 
science,  until  it  has  been  humanized.  The  table 
of  logarithms  is  one  thing,  and  its  vital  play,  in 
botany,  music,  optics,  and  architecture,  another. 
There  are  advancements  to  numbers,  anatomy, 
architecture,  astronomy,  little  suspected  at  first, 
when,  by  union  with  intellect  and  will,  they  ascend 
into  the  life,  and  reappear  in  conversation,  char- 
acter, and  politics. 


Usee  ot  Great  UX^crx  17 

But  this  comes  later.  We  speak  now  only  of 
our  acquaintance  with  them  in  their  own  sphere, 
and  the  way  in  which  they  seem  to  fascinate  and 
draw  to  them  some  genius  who  occupies  himself 
with  one  thing,  all  his  life  long.  The  possibility 
of  interpretation  lies  in  the  identity  of  the 
observer  with  the  observed.  Each  material  thing 
has  its  celestial  side ;  has  its  translation,  through 
humanity,  into  the  spiritual  and  necessary  sphere, 
where  it  plays  a  part  as  indestructible  as  any 
other.  And  to  these,  their  ends,  all  things  con- 
tinually ascend.  The  gases  gather  to  the  solid 
firmament :  the  chemic  lump  arrives  at  the  plant, 
and  grows  ;  arrives  at  the  quadruped,  and  walks ; 
arrives  at  the  man,  and  thinks.  But  also  the 
constituency  determines  the  vote  of  the  repre- 
sentative. He  is  not  only  representative,  but 
participant.  Like  can  only  be  known  by  like. 
The  reason  why  he  knows  about  them  is,  that  he 
is  of  them;  he  has  just  come  out  of  nature, 
or  from  being  a  part  of  that  thing.  Animated 
chlorine  knows  of  chlorine,  and  incarnate  zinc, 
of  zinc.  Their  quality  makes  this  career;  and 
he  can  variously  publish  their  virtues,  because 
they  compose  him.  Man,  made  of  the  dust  of 
the  world,  does  not  forget  his*origin  ;  and  all  that 
is  yet  inanimate  will  one  day  speak  and  reason. 


i8  •Representative  rtben 

Unpublished  nature  will  have  its  whole  secret 
told.  Shall  we  say  that  quartz  mountains  will 
pulverize  into  innumerable  Werners,  Von  Buchs, 
and  Beaumonts  ;  and  the  laboratory  of  the  atmos- 
phere holds  in  solution  I  know  not  what  Ber- 
zeliuses  and  Davys  ? 

Thus,  we  sit  by  the  fire,  and  take  hold  on  the 
poles  of  the  earth.  This  quasi  omnipresence  sup- 
plies the  imbecility  of  our  condition.  In  one  of 
those  celestial  days,  when  heaven  and  earth  meet 
and  adorn  each  other,  it  seems  a  poverty  that  we 
can  only  spend  it  once :  we  wish  for  a  thousand 
heads,  a  thousand  bodies,  that  we  might  celebrate 
its  immense  beauty  in  many  ways  and  places.  Is 
this  fancy?  Well,  in  good  faith,  we  are  multiplied 
by  our  proxies.  How  easily  we  adopt  their  labors ! 
Every  ship  that  comes  to  America  got  its  chart 
from  Columbus.  Every  novel  is  debtor  to  Homer. 
Every  carpenter  who  shaves  with  a  foreplane  bor- 
rows the  genius  of  a  forgotten  inventor.  Life  is 
girt  all  around  with  a  zodiac  of  sciences,  the  con- 
tributions of  men  who  have  perished  to  add  their 
point  of  light  to  our  sky.  Engineer,  broker, 
jurist,  physician,  moralist,  theologian,  and  every 
man,  inasmuch  as  he  has  any  science,  is  a  definer 
and  map-maker  of  the  latitudes  and  longitudes  of 
our  condition.     These  road-makers  on  every  hand 


iSiece  ot  ©rcat  jflBen  19 

enrich  us.  We  must  extend  the  area  of  life,  and 
multiply  our  relations.  We  are  as  much  gainers 
by  finding  a  new  property  in  the  old  earth,  as  by 
acquiring  a  new  planet. 

We  are  too  passive  in  the  reception  of  these 
material  or  semi-material  aids.  We  must  not  be 
sacks  and  stomachs.  To  ascend  one  step, — we  are 
better  served  through  our  sympathy.  Activity  is 
contagious.  Looking  where  others  look,  and  con- 
versing with  the  same  things,  we  catch  the  charm 
which  lured  them.  Napoleon  said,  ''you  must 
not  fight  too  often  with  one  enemy,  or  you  will 
teach  him  all  your  art  of  war."  Talk  much  with 
any  man  of  vigorous  mind,  and  we  acquire  very 
fast  the  habit  of  looking  at  things  in  the  same 
light,  and,  on  each  occurrence,  we  anticipate  his 
thought. 

Men  are  helpful  through  the  intellect  and  the 
aff"ections.  Other  help,  I  find  a  false  appearance. 
If  you  affect  to  give  me  bread  and  fire,  I  perceive 
that  I  pay  for  it  the  full  price,  and  at  last  it  leaves 
me  as  it  found  me,  neither  better  nor  worse  :  but 
all  mental  and  moral  force  is  a  positive  good.  It 
goes  out  from  you,  whether  you  will  or  not,  and 
profits  me  whom  you  never  thought  of.  I  cannot 
even  hear  of  personal  vigor  of  any  kind,  great 
power  of  performance,  without  fresh   resolution. 


20  1Rcprc6cntative  flbcn 

We  are  emulous  of  all  that  man  can  do.  Cecil's 
saying  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  "1  know  that  he 
can  toil  terribly,"  is  an  electric  touch.  So  are 
Clarendon's  portraits, — of  Hampden;  *' who  was 
of  an  industry  and  vigilance  not  to  be  tired  out 
or  wearied  by  the  most  laborious,  and  of  parts 
not  to  be  imposed  on  by  the  most  subtle  and  sharp, 
and  of  a  personal  courage  equal  to  his  best  parts ' ' — 
of  Falkland;  *^who  was  so  severe  an  adorer  of 
truth,  that  he  could  as  easily  have  given  himself 
leave  to  steal,  as  to  dissemble."  We  cannot  read 
Plutarch,  without  a  tingling  of  the  blood  ;  and  I 
accept  the  saying  of  the  Chinese  Mencius :  *'A 
sage  is  the  instructor  of  a  hundred  ages.  When 
the  manners  of  Loo  are  heard  of,  the  stupid  be- 
come intelligent,  and  the  wavering,  determined." 
This  is  the  moral  of  biography ;  yet  it  is  hard 
for  departed  men  to  touch  the  quick  like  our  own 
companions,  whose  iiames  may  not  last  as  long. 
What  is  he  whom  I  never  think  of?  whilst  in 
every  solitude  are  those  who  succor  our  genius, 
and  stimulate  us  in  wonderful  manners.  There 
is  a  power  in  love  to  divine  another's  destiny  bet- 
ter than  that  other  can,  and  by  heroic  encourage- 
ments, hold  him  to  his  task.  What  has  friendship 
so  signaled  as  its  sublime  attraction  to  whatever 
virtue  is  in  us  ?   We  will  never  more  think  cheaply 


lUses  ot  (Brcat  /Ren  21 

of  ourselves,  or  of  life.  We  are  piqued  to  some 
purpose,  and  the  industry  of  the  diggers  on  the 
railroad  will  not  again  shame  us. 

Under  this  head,  too,  falls  that  homage,  very- 
pure,  as  I  think,  which  all  ranks  pay  to  the  hero 
of  the  day,  from  Coriolanus  and  Gracchus,  down 
to  Pitt,  Lafayette,  Wellington,  Webster,  Lamar- 
tine.  Hear  the  shouts  in  the  street !  The  people 
cannot  see  him  enough.  They  delight  in  a  man. 
Here  is  a  head  and  a  trunk  !  What  a  front ! 
What  eyes  !  Atlantean  shoulders,  and  the  whole 
carriage  heroic,  with  equal  inward  force  to  guide 
the  great  machine  !  This  pleasure  of  full  expres- 
sion to  that  which,  in  their  private  experience,  is 
usually  cramped  and  obstructed,  runs,  also,  much 
higher,  and  is  the  secret  of  the  reader's  joy  in  lit- 
erary genius.  Nothing  is  kept  back.  There  is 
fire  enough  to  fuse  the  mountain  of  ore.  Shak- 
speare's  principal  merit  may  be  conveyed,  in  say- 
ing that  he,  of  all  men,  best  understands  the 
English  language,  and  can  say  what  he  will.  Yet 
these  unchoked  channels  and  floodgates  of  expres- 
sion are  only  health  or  fortunate  constitution. 
Shakspeare's  name  suggests  other  and  purely  intel- 
lectual benefits. 

Senates  and  sovereigns  have  no  compliment, 
with  their  medals,  swords,  and  armorial  coats,  like 


22  •Representative  Aen 

the  addressing  to  a  human  being  thoughts  out  of 
a  certain  height,  and  presupposing  his  intelligence. 
This  honor,  which  is  possible  in  personal  inter- 
course scarcely  twice  in  a  lifetime,  genius  perpet- 
ually pays;  contented,  if  now  and  then,  in  a  cen- 
tury, the  proffer  is  accepted.  The  indicators  of 
the  values  of  matter  are  degraded  to  a  sort  of 
cooks  and  confectioners,  on  the  appearance  of  the 
indicators  of  ideas.  Genius  is  the  naturalist  or 
geographer  of  the  supersensible  regions,  and 
draws  on  their  map;  and,  by  acquainting  us  with 
new  fields  of  activity,  cools  our  affection  for  the 
old.  These  are  at  once  accepted  as  the  reality, 
of  which  the  world  we  have  conversed  with  is  the 
show. 

We  go  to  the  gymnasium  and  the  swimming- 
school  to  see  the  power  and  beauty  of  the  body ; 
there  is  the  like  pleasure,  and  a  higher  benefit, 
from  witnessing  intellectual  feats  of  all  kinds;  as, 
feats  of  memory,  of  mathematical  combination, 
great  power  of  abstraction,  the  transmutings  of 
the  imagination,  even  versatility,  and  concentra- 
tion, as  these  acts  expose  the  invisible  organs  and 
members  of  the  mind,  which  respond,  member 
for  member  to  the  parts  of  the  body.  For,  we 
thus  enter  a  new  gymnasium,  and  learn  to  choose 
men  by  their  truest  marks,  taught,  with   Plato, 


macs  ot  6rcat  ^en  23 

''to  choose  those  who  can,  without  aid  from  the 
eyes,  or  any  other  sense,  proceed  to  truth  and  to 
being."  Foremost  among  these  activities,  are  the 
summersaults,  spells,  and  resurrections,  wrought 
by  the  imagination.  When  this  wakes,  a  man 
seems  to  multiply  ten  times  or  a  thousand  times 
his  force.  It  opens  the  delicious  sense  of  indeter- 
minate size,  and  inspires  an  audacious  mental 
habit.  We  are  as  elastic  as  the  gas  of  gunpow- 
der, and  a  sentence  in  a  book,  or  a  word  dropped 
in  conversation,  sets  free  our  fancy,  and  instantly 
our  heads  are  bathed  with  galaxies,  and  our  feet 
tread  the  floor  of  the  Pit.  And  this  benefit  is 
real,  because  we  are  entitled  to  these  enlargements, 
and,  once  having  passed  the  bounds,  shall  never 
again  be  quite  the  miserable  pedants  we  were. 

The  high  functions  of  the  intellect  are  so  allied, 
that  some  imaginative  power  usually  appears  in  all 
eminent  minds,  even  in  arithmeticians  of  the  first 
class,  but  especially  in  meditative  men  of  an  in- 
tuitive habit  of  thought.  This  class  serve  us,  so 
that  they  have  the  perception  of  identity  and  the 
perception  of  reaction.  The  eyes  of  Plato, 
Shakspeare,  Swedenborg,  Goethe,  never  shut  on 
either  of  these  laws.  The  perception  of  these 
laws  is  a  kind  of  metre  of  the  mind.  Little 
minds  are  little,  through  failure  to  see  them. 


24  IRepresentatlvc  IJbcn 

Even  these  feasts  have  their  surfeit.  Our  de- 
light in  reason  degenerates  into  idolatry  of  the 
herald.  Especially  when  a  mind  of  powerful 
method  has  instructed  men,  we  find  the  exam- 
ples of  oppression.  The  dominion  of  Aristotle, 
the  Ptolemaic  astronomy,  the  credit  of  Luther,  of 
Bacon,  of  Locke, — in  religion  the  history  of 
hierarchies,  of  saints,  and  the  sects  which  have 
taken  the  name  of  each  founder,  are  in  point. 
Alas  !  every  man  is  such  a  victim.  The  imbecil- 
ity of  men  is  always  inviting  the  impudence  of 
power.  It  is  the  delight  of  vulgar  talent  to  dazzle 
and  to  bind  the  beholder.  But  true  genius  seeks 
to  defend  us  from  itself.  True  genius  will  not 
impoverish,  but  will  liberate,  and  add  new  senses. 
If  a  wise  man  should  appear  in  our  village,  he 
would  create,  in  those  who  conversed  with  him,  a 
new  consciousness  of  wealth,  by  opening  their  eyes 
to  unobserved  advantages;  he  would  establish  a 
sense  of  immovable  equality,  calm  us  with  assur- 
ances that  we  could  not  be  cheated  ;  as  every  one 
would  discern  the  checks  and  guaranties  of 
condition.  The  rich  would  see  their  mistakes  and 
poverty,  the  poor  their  escapes  and  their  resources. 

But  nature  brings  all  this  about  in  due  time. 
Rotation  is  her  remedy.  The  soul  is  impatient  of 
masters,  and  eager  for  change.     Housekeepers  say 


Xttscs  o(  Great  ^en  25 

of  a  domestic  who  has  been  valuable,  ''She  had 
lived  with  me  long  enough."  We  are  tendencies, 
or  rather,  symptoms,  and  none  of  us  complete. 
We  touch  and  go,  and  sip  the  foam  of  many  lives. 
Rotation  is  the  law  of  nature.  When  nature 
removes  a  great  man,  people  explore  the  horizon 
for  a  successor;  but  none  comes  and  none  will. 
His  class  is  extinguished  with  him.  In  some  other 
and  quite  different  field,  the  next  man  will  appear ; 
not  Jefferson,  not  Franklin,  but  now  a  great  sales- 
man ;  then  a  road-contractor ;  then  a  student  of 
fishes ;  then  a  buffalo-hunting  explorer,  or  a  semi- 
savage  western  general.  Thus  we  make  a  stand 
against  our  rougher  masters ;  but  against  the  best 
there  is  a  finer  remedy.  The  power  which  they 
communicate  is  not  theirs.  When  we  are  exalted 
by  ideas,  we  do  not  owe  this  to  Plato,  but  to  the 
idea,  to  which,  also,  Plato  was  debtor. 

I  must  not  forget  that  we  have  a  special  debt 
to  a  single  class.  Life  is  a  scale  of  degrees. 
Between  rank  and  rank  of  our  great  men  are 
wide  intervals.  Mankind  have,  in  all  ages,  attached 
themselves  to  a  few  persons,  who,  either  by  the 
quality  of  that  idea  they  embodied,  or  by  the  large- 
ness of  their  reception,  were  entitled  to  the  posi- 
tion of  leaders  and  law-givers.  These  teach  us  the 
qualities  of  primary  nature, — admit  us  to  the  con- 


26  •Representative  flben 

stitution  of  things.  We  swim,  day  by  day,  on  a 
river  of  delusions,  and  are  effectually  amused  with 
houses  and  towns  in  the  air,  of  which  the  men 
about  us  are  dupes.  But  life  is  a  sincerity.  In 
lucid  intervals  we  say,  ''Let  there  be  an  entrance 
opened  forme  into  realities;  I  have  worn  the  fool's 
cap  too  long."  We  will  know  the  meaning  of  our 
economies  and  politics.  Give  us  the  cipher,  and, 
if  persons  and  things  are  scores  of  a  celestial  music, 
let  us  read  off  the  strains.  We  have  been  cheated 
of  our  reason ;  yet  there  have  been  sane  men,  who 
enjoyed  a  rich  and  related  existence.  What  they 
know,  they  know  for  us.  With  each  new  mind, 
a  new  secret  of  nature  transpires;  nor  can  the 
Bible  be  closed,  until  the  last  great  man  is  born. 
These  men  correct  the  delirium  of  the  animal 
spirits,  make  us  considerate,  and  engage  us  to 
new  aims  and  powers.  The  veneration  of  man- 
kind selects  these  for  the  highest  place.  Witness 
the  multitude  of  statues,  pictures,  and  memorials 
which  recall  their  genius  in  every  city,  village, 
house,  and  ship :  — 

"  Ever  their  phantoms  arise  before  us, 
Our  loftier  brothers,  but  one  in  blood; 
At  bed  and  table  they  lord  it  o'er  us, 

With  looks  of  beauty,  and  words  of  good." 


Tllses  of  exeat  USscn  27 

How  to  illustrate  the  distinctive  benefit  of  ideas, 
the  service  rendered  by  those  who  introduce  moral 
truths  into  the  general  mind? — I  am  plagued, 
in  all  my  living',  with  a  perpetual  tariff  of  prices. 
If  I  work  in  my  garden,  and  prune  an  apple-tree, 
I  am  well  enough  entertained,  and  could  continue 
indefinitely  in  the  like  occupation.  But  it  comes 
to  mind  that  a  day  is  gone,  and  I  have  got 
this  precious  nothing  done.  I  go  to  Boston  or 
New  York,  and  run  up  and  down  on  my  affairs : 
they  are  sped," but  so  is  the  day.  I  am  vexed 
by  the  recollection  of  this  price  I  have  paid  for  a 
trifling  advantage.  I  remember  the  J>eau  (T  ane^ 
on  which  whoso  sat  should  have  his  desire,  but 
a  piece  of  the  skin  was  gone  for  every  wish.  I 
go  to  a  convention  of  philanthropists.  Do  what  I 
can,  I  cannot  keep  my  eyes  off  the  clock.  But 
if  there  should  appear  in  the  company  some  gentle 
soul  who  knows  little  of  persons  or  parties,  of 
Carolina  or  Cuba,  but  who  announces  a  law  that 
disposes  these  particulars,  and  so  certifies  me  of 
the  equity  which  checkmates  every  false  player, 
bankrupts  every  self-seeker,  and  apprises  me  of 
my  independence  on  any  conditions  of  country, 
or  time,  or  human  body,  that  man  liberates  me ;  I 
forget  the  clock.  I  pass  out  of  the  sore  relation 
to  persons.     I  am  healed  of  my  hurts.      I  am 


28  IReprescntativc  ^en 

made  immortal  by  apprehending  my  possession 
of  incorruptible  goods.  Here  is  great  competi- 
tion of  rich  and  poor.  We  live  in  a  market, 
where  is  only  so  much  wheat,  or  wool,  or  land ; 
and  if  I  have  so  much  more,  every  other  must 
have  so  much  less.  I  seem  to  have  no  good, 
without  breach  of  good  manners.  Nobody  is  glad 
in  the  gladness  of  another,  and  our  system  is  one 
of  war,  of  an  injurious  superiority.  Every  child 
of  the  Saxon  race  is  educated  to  wish  to  be  first. 
li  is  our  system;  and  a  man  comes  to  measure  his 
greatness  by  the  regrets,  envies,  and  hatreds  of  his 
competitors.  But  in  these  new  fields  there  is 
room:  here  are  no  self-esteems,  no  exclusions. 

I  admire  great  men  of  all  classes,  those  who 
stand  for  facts,  and  for  thoughts;  I  like  rough 
and  smooth,  ''Scourges  of  God,"  and  "Darlings 
of  the  human  race."  I  like  the  first  Caesar;  and 
Charles  V.,  of  Spain;  and  Charles  XII.,  of  Swe- 
den; Richard  Plantagenet;  and  Bonaparte,  in 
»  France.  I  applaud  a  sufficient  man,  an  officer 
equal  to  his  office;  captains,  ministers,  senators. 
I  like  a  master  standing  firm  on  legs  of  iron,  well- 
born, rich,  handsome,  eloquent,  loaded  with 
advantages,  drawing  all  men  by  fascination  into 
tributaries  and  supporters  of  his  power. .  Sword 
and  staff,  or  talents  sword-like  or  staff-like,  carry 


TUses  ot  (5rcat  ifRen  29 

on  the  work  of  the  world.  But  I  find  him  greater, 
when  he  can  abolish  himself,  and  all  heroes,  by 
letting  in  this  element  of  reason,  irrespective  of 
persons;  this  subtilizer,  and  irresistible  upward 
force,  into  our  thought,  destroying  individualism; 
the  power  so  great,  that  the  potentate  is  nothing. 
Then  he  is  a  monarch,  who  gives  a  constitution 
to  his  people;  a  pontiff,  who  preaches  the  equality 
of  souls,  and  releases  his  servants  from  their  bar- 
barous homages;  an  emperor,  who  can  spare  his 
empire. 

But  I  intended  to  specify,  with  a  little  minute- 
ness, two  or  three  points  of  service.  Nature 
never  spares  the  opium  or  nepenthe ;  but  wher- 
ever she  mars  her  creature  with  some  deformity 
or  defect,  lays  her  poppies  plentifully  on  the 
bruise,  and  the  sufferer  goes  joyfully  through  life, 
ignorant  of  the  ruin,  and  incapable  of  seeing  it, 
though  all  the  world  point  their  finger  at  it 
every  day.  The  worthless  and  offensive  members 
of  society,  whose  existence  is  a  social  pest,  invar- 
iably think  themselves  the  most  ill-used  people 
alive,  and  never  get  over  their  astonishment  at 
the  ingratitude  and  selfishness  of  their  contempo- 
raries. Our  globe  discovers  its  hidden  virtues, 
not  only  in  heroes  and  archangels,  but  in  gossips 
and  nurses.  Is  it  not  a  rare  contrivance  that 
3 


30  IReprcBcntative  /Bben 

lodged  the  due  inertia  in  every  creature,  the  con- 
serving, resisting  energy,  the  anger  at  being 
waked  or  changed  ?  Altogether  independent  of 
the  intellectual  force  in  each,  is  the  pride  of  opin- 
ion, the  security  that  we  are  right.  Not  the 
feeblest  grandame,  not  a  mowing  idiot,  but  uses 
what  spark  of  perception  and  faculty  is  left,  to 
chuckle  and  triumph  in  his  or  her  opinion  over 
the  absurdities  of  all  the  rest.  Difference  from 
me  is  the  measure  of  absurdity.  Not  one  has  a 
misgiving  of  being  wrong.  Was  it  not  a  bright 
thought  that  made  things  cohere  with  this  bitu 
men,  fastest  of  cements?  But,  in  the  midst  of 
this  chuckle  of  self-gratulation,  some  figure  goes 
by,  which  Thersites  too  can  love  and  admire. 
This  is  he  that  should  marshal  us  the  way  we  were 
going.  There  is  no  end  to  his  aid.  Without 
Plato,  we  should  almost  lose  our  faith  in  the  possi- 
bility of  a  reasonable  book.  We  seem  to  want 
but  one,  but  we  want  one.  We  love  to  associate 
with  heroic  persons,  since  our  receptivity  is  un- 
limited ;  and,  with  the  great,  our  thoughts  and 
manners  easily  become  great.  We  are  all  wise  in 
capacity,  though  so  few  in  energy.  There  needs 
but  one  wise  man  in  a  company,  and  all  are  wise, 
so  rapid  is  the  contagion. 

Great  men  are  thus  a  collyrium  to  clear  our 


Tllses  ot  0reat  ^en  31 

eyes  from  egotism,  and  enable  us  to  see  other 
people  and  their  works.  But  there  are  vices  and 
follies  incident  to  whole  populations  and  ages. 
Men  resemble  their  contemporaries,  even  more 
than  their  progenitors.  It  is  observed  in  old 
couples,  or  in  persons  who  have  been  housemates 
for  a  course  of  years,  that  they  grow  alike ;  and, 
if  they  should  live  long  enough,  we  should  not  be 
able  to  know  them  apart.  Nature  abhors  these 
complaisances,  which  threaten  to  melt  the  world 
into  a  lump,  and  hastens  to  break  up  such  maud- 
lin agglutinations.  The  like  assimilation  goes  on 
between  men  of  one  town,  of  one  sect,  of  one 
political  party ;  and  the  ideas  of  the  time  are  in 
the  air,  and  infect  all  who  breathe  it.  Viewed 
from  any  high  point,  this  city  of  New  York,  yon- 
der city  of  London,  the  western  civilization, 
would  seem  a  bundle  of  insanities.  We  keep  each 
other  in  countenance,  and  exasperate  by  emula- 
tion the  frenzy  of  the  time.-  The  shield  against 
the  stingings  of  conscience,  is  the  universal  prac- 
tice, or  our  contemporaries.  Again ;  it  is  very 
easy  to  be  as  wise  and  good  as  your  companions. 
We  learn  of  our  contemporaries  what  they  know, 
without  effort,  and  almost  through  the  pores  of 
the  skin.  We  catch  it  by  sympathy,  or,  as  a  wife 
arrives  at  the  intellectual  and  moral  elevations  of 


32  •Representative  Ifbcn 

her  husband.  But  we  stop  where  they  stop. 
Very  hardly  can  we  take  another  step.  The 
great,  or  such  as  hold  of  nature,  and  transcend 
fashions,  by  their  fidelity  to  universal  ideas,  are 
saviors  from  these  federal  errors,  and  defend  us 
from  our  contemporaries.  They  are  the  ex:cep- 
tions  which  we  want,  where  all  grows  alike.  A 
foreign  greatness  is  the  antidote  for  cabalism. 

Thus  we  feed  on  genius,  and  refresh  ourselves 
from  too  much  conversation  with  our  mates,  and 
exult  in  the  depth  of  nature  in  that  direction  in 
which  he  leads  us.  What  indemnification  is  one 
great  man  for  populations  of  pigmies  !  Every 
mother  wishes  one  son  a  genius,  though  all  the 
rest  should  be  mediocre.  But  a  new  danger  ap- 
pears in  the  excess  of  influence  of  the  great  man. 
His  attractions  warp  us  from  our  place.  We  have 
become  underlings  and  intellectual  suicides.  Ah  ! 
yonder  in  the  horizon  is  our  help  :  —  other  great 
men,  new  qualities,  counterweights  and  checks  on 
each  other.  We  cloy  of  the  honey  of  each  pe- 
culiar greatness.  Every  hero  becomes  a  bore  at 
last.  Perhaps  Voltaire  was  not  bad-hearted,  yet 
he  said  of  the  good  Jesus,  even,  'T  pray  you,  let 
me  never  hear  that  man's  name  again."  They 
cry  up  the  virtues  of  George  Washington, — 
**Damn  George  Washington  !  "  is  the  poor  Jaco- 


xaaes  of  ©rcat  /Ren  33 

bin's  whole  speech  and  confutation.  But  it  is 
human  nature's  indispensable  defence.  The  cen- 
tripetence  augments  the  centrifugence.  We  bal- 
ance one  man  with  his  opposite,  and  the  health 
of  the  state  depends  on  the  see-saw. 

There  is,  however,  a  speedy  limit  to  the  use 
of  heroes.  Every  genius  is  defended  from  ap- 
proach by  quantities  of  availableness.  They 
are  very  attractive,  and  seem  at  a  distance  our 
own :  but  we  are  hindered  on  all  sides  from 
approach.  The  more  we  are  drawn,  the  more 
we  are  repelled.  There  is  something  not  solid 
in  the  good  that  is  done  for  us.  The  best  dis- 
covery the  discoverer  makes  for  himself.  It  has 
something  unreal  for  his  companion,  until  he  too  has 
substantiated  it.  It  seems  as  if  the  Deity  dressed 
each  soul  which  he  sends  into  nature  in  certain 
virtues  and  powers  not  communicable  to  other 
men,  and,  sending  it  to  perform  one  more  turn 
through  the  circle  of  beings,  wrote  ^^Not  trans- 
ferable,''^ and  ''^  Good  for  this  trip  only,^^  on  these 
garments  of  the  soul.  There  is  somewhat  deceptive 
about  the  intercourse  of  minds.  The  boundaries 
are  invisible,  but  they  are  never  crossed.  There 
is  such  good  will  to  impart,  and  such  good  will  to 
receive,  that  each  threatens  to  become  the  other; 
but  the  law   of  individuality  collects  its  secret 


34  TReprcscntativc  /Hben 

strength  :  you  are  you,  and  I  am  I,  and  so  we  re- 
main. 

For  Nature  wishes  every  thing  to  remain  itself; 
and,  whilst  every  individual  strives  to  grow  and 
exclude,  and  to  exclude  and  grow,  to  the  extremi- 
ties of  the  universe,  and  to  impose  the  law  of  its 
being  on  every  other  creature,  Nature  steadily  aims 
to  protect  each  against  every  other.  Each  is  self- 
defended.  Nothing  is  more  marked  than  the 
power  by  which  individuals  are  guarded  from  in- 
dividuals, in  a  world  where  every  benefactor 
becomes  so  easily  a  malefactor,  only  by  continua- 
tion of  his  activity  into  places  where  it  is  not 
due ;  where  children  seem  so  much  at  the  mercy 
of  their  foolish  parents,  and  where  almost  all  men 
are  too  social  and  interfering.  We  rightly  speak 
of  the  guardian  angels  of  children.  How  supe- 
rior in  their  security  from  infusions  of  evil  per- 
sons, from  vulgarity  and  second  thought !  They 
shed  their  own  abundant  beauty  on  the  objects 
they  behold.  Therefore,  they  are  not  at  the  mercy 
of  such  poor  educators  as  we  adults.  If  we  huff 
and  chide  them,  they  soon  come  not  to  mind  it, 
and  get  a  self-reliance ;  and  if  we  indulge  them 
to  folly,  they  learn  the  limitation  elsewhere. 

We  need  not  fear  excessive  influence.  A  more 
generous  trust    is    permitted.     Serve   the   great. 


Xttses  ot  Great  ^en  35 

Stick  at  no  humiliation.  Grudge  no  office  thou 
canst  render.  Be  the  limb  of  their  body,  the 
breath  of  their  mouth.  Compromise  thy  egotism. 
Who  cares  for  that,  so  thou  gain  aught  wider  and 
nobler?  Never  mind  the  taunt  of  Boswellism : 
the  devotion  may  easily  be  greater  than  the 
wretched  pride  which  is  guarding  its  own  skirts. 
Be  another :  not  thyself,  but  a  Platonist ;  not  a 
soul,  but  a  Christian  ;  not  a  naturalist,  but  a  Car- 
tesian; not  a  poet,  but  a  Shaksperian.  In  vain, 
the  wheels  of  tendency  will  not  stop,  nor  will  all 
the  forces  of  inertia,  fear,  or  of  love  itself,  hold 
thee  there.  On,  and  forever  onward  !  The  micro- 
scope observes  a  monad  or  wheel-insect  among  the 
infusories  circulating  in  water.  Presently,  a  dot 
appears  on  the  animal,  which  enlarges  to  a  slit, 
and  it  becomes  two  perfect  animals.  The  ever-pro- 
ceeding detachment  appears  not  less  in  all  thcught, 
and  in  society.  Children  think  they  cannot  live 
without  their  parents.  But,  long  before  they  are 
aware  of  it,  the  black  dot  has  appeared,  and  the 
detachment  taken  place.  Any  accident  will  now 
reveal  to  them  their  independence. 

But  great  men : — the  word  is  injurious.  Is  there 
caste?  is  there  fate?  What  becomes  of  the 
promise  to  virtue?  The  thoughtful  youth  laments 
the    superfoetation  of   nature.     "  Generous    and 


36  1?eprc0entative  /Bbcn 

handsome,"  he  says,  "  is  your  hero  ;  but  look  at 
yonder  poor  Paddy,  whose  country  is  his  wheel- 
barrow ;  look  at  his  whole  nation  of  Paddies." 
Why  are  the  masses,  from  the  dawn  of  history 
down,  food  for  knives  and  powder?  The  idea 
dignifies  a  few  leaders,  who  have  sentiment, 
opinion,  love,  self-devotion ;  and  they  make  war  and 
death  sacred ; — but  what  forthe  wretches  whom  they 
hire  and  kill  ?  The  cheapness  of  man  is  every 
day's  tragedy.  It  is  as  real  a  loss  that  others 
should  be  low,  as  that  we  should  be  low  ;  for  we 
must  have  society. 

Is  it  a  reply  to  these  suggestions,  to  say,  society 
is  a  Pestalozzian  school:  all  are  teachers  and 
pupils  in  turn.  We  are  equally  served  by  receiv- 
ing and  by  imparting.  Men  who  know  the  same 
things,  are  not  long  the  best  company  for  each 
other.  But  bring  to  each  an  intelligent  person  of 
another  experience,  and  it  is  as  if  you  let  off 
water  from  a  lake,  by  cutting  a  lower  basin.  It 
seems  a  mechanical  advantage,  and  great  benefit 
it  is  to  each  speaker,  as  he  can  now  paint  out  his 
thought  to  himself.  We  pass  very  fast,  in  our 
personal  moods,  from  dignity  to  dependence.  And 
if  any  appear  never  to  assume  the  chair,  but 
always  to  stand  and  serve,  it  is  because  we  do  not 
see  the  company  in  a  sufficiently  long  period   for 


•daes  ot  (5reat  USscn  37 

the  whole  rotation  of  parts  to  come  about.  As  to 
what  we  call  the  masses,  and  common  men  ; — 
there  are  no  common  men.  All  men  are  at  last 
of  a  size ;  and  true  art  is  only  possible,  on  the 
conviction  that  every  talent  has  its  apotheosis 
somewhere.  Fair  play,  and  an  open  field,  and 
freshest  laurels  to  all  who  have  won  them  !  But 
heaven  reserves  an  equal  scope  for  every  creature. 
Each  is  uneasy  until  he  has  produced  his  private 
ray  unto  the  concave  sphere,  and  beheld  his  talent 
also  in  its  last  nobility  and  exaltation. 

The  heroes  of  the  hour  are  relatively  great: 
of  a  faster  growth  ;  or  they  are  such,  in  whom, 
at  the  moment  of  success,  a  quality  is  ripe  which 
is  then  in  request.  Other  days  will  demand 
other  qualities.  Some  rays  escape  the  common 
observer,  and  want  a  finely  adapted  eye.  Ask 
the  great  man  if  there  be  none  greater.  His 
companions  are;  and  not  the  less  great,  but  the 
more,  that  society  cannot  see  them.  Nature  never 
sends  a  great  man  into  the  planet,  without  con- 
fiding the  secret  to  another  soul. 

One  gracious  fact  emerges  from  these  studies, — 
that  there  is  true  ascension  in  our  love.  The 
reputations  of  the  nineteenth  century  will  one  day 
be  quoted  to  prove  its  barbarism.  The  genius  of 
humanity  is  the  real  subject  whose  biography  is 


38  IRepresentatlve  /iBen 

written  in  our  annals.  We  must  infer  much,  and 
supply  many  chasms  in  the  record.  The  history  of 
the  universe  is  symptomatic,  and  life  is  mnemoni- 
cal.  No  man,  in  all  the  procession  of  famous  men, 
is  reason  or  illumination,  or  that  essence  we  were 
looking  for ;  but  is  an  exhibition,  in  some  quarter, 
of  new  possibilities.  Could  we  one  day  complete 
the  immense  figure  which  these  flagrant  points  com- 
pose !  The  study  of  many  individuals  leads  us  to 
an  elemental  region  wherein  the  individual  is  lost, 
or  wherein  all  touch  by  their  summits.  Thought  and 
feeling,  that  break  out  there,  cannot  be  impounded 
by  any  fence  of  personality.  This  is  the  key  to 
the  power  of  the  greatest  men, — their  spirit  dif- 
fuses itself.  A  new  quality  of  mind  travels  by 
night  and  by  day,  in  concentric  circles  from  its 
origin,  and  publishes  itself  by  unknown  methods: 
the  union  of  all  minds  appears  intimate  :  what  gets 
admission  to  one,  cannot  be  kept  out  of  any  other: 
the  smallest  acquisition  of  truth  or  of  energy,  in 
any  quarter,  is  so  much  good  to  the  commonwealth 
of  souls.  If  the  disparities  of  talent  and  position 
vanish,  when  the  individuals  are  seen  in  the  dura- 
tion which  is  necessary  to  complete  the  career  of 
each;  even  more  swiftly  the  seeming  injustice  dis- 
appears, when  we  ascend  to  the  central  identity  of 
all  the  individuals,  and  know  that  they  are  made 


IHscs  ot  (Srcat  ^en  39 

of    the    same    substance    which    ordaineth    and 
doeth. 

The  genius  of  humanity  is  the  right  point  of 
view  of  history.  The  qualities  abide  j  the  men 
who  exhibit  them  have  now  more,  now  less,  and 
pass  away ;  the  qualities  remain  on  another  brow. 
No  experience  is  more  familiar.  Once  you  saw 
phoenixes :  they  are  gone ;  the  world  is  not  there- 
fore disenchanted.  The  vessels  on  which  you 
read  sacred  emblems  turn  out  to  be  common  pot- 
tery ;  but  the  sense  of  the  pictures  is  sacred,  and 
you  may  still  read  them  transferred  to  the  walls 
of  the  world.  For  a  time,  our  teachers  serve  us 
personally,  as  metres  or  milestones  of  progress. 
Once  they  were  angels  of  knowledge,  and  their 
figures  touched  the  sky.  Then  we  drew  near,  saw 
their  means,  culture,  and  limits;  and  they  yielded 
their  place  to  other  geniuses.  Happy,  if  a  few 
names  remain  so  high,  that  we  have  not  been  able 
to  read  them  nearer,  and  age  and  comparison  have 
not  robbed  them  of  a  ray.  But,  at  last,  we  shall 
cease  to  look  in  men  for  completeness,  and  shall 
content  ourselves  with  their  social  and  delegated 
quality.  All  that  respects  the  individual  is  tem- 
porary and  prospective,  like  the  individual  himself, 
who  is  ascending  out  of  his  limits,  into  a  catholic 
existence.     We  have  never  come  at  the  true  and 


40  IReprescntative  /Ren 

best  benefit  of  any  genius,  so  long  as  we  believe 
him  an  original  force.  In  the  moment  when  he 
ceases  to  help  us  as  a  cause,  he  begins  to  help  us  move 
as  an  effect.  Then  he  appears  as  an  exponenc  of  a 
vaster  mind  and  will.  The  opaque  self  becomes 
transparent  with  the  light  of  the  First  Cause. 

Yet,  within  the  limits  of  human  education  and 
agency,  we  may  say,  great  men  exist  that  there 
may  be  greater  men.  The  destiny  of  organized 
nature  is  amelioration,  and  who  can  tell  its  limits? 
It  is  for  man  to  tame  the  chaos ;  on  every  side, 
whilst  he  lives,  to  scatter  the  seeds  of  science  and 
of  song,  that  climate,  corn,  animals,  men,  maybe 
milder,  and  the  germs  of  love  and  benefit  may  be 
multiplied. 


PLATO ; 

OR, 

THE  PHILOSOPHER. 


II 

PLATO;  OR,  THE  PHILOSOPHER 


Amohmg  hooks,  Plato  only  is  entitled  to  Omar's 
fanatical  compliment  to  the  Koran^  when  he  said, 
"Burn  the  libraries;  for,  their v^ue  is  in  this 
book."  These  sentences  contain  the  cnltttre  of 
nations ;  these  are  the  comer-stone  of  schools ; 
these  are  the  fomitain-head  of  literatures,  A  dis- 
cipline it  is  in  logic,  arithmetic,  taste,  symmetry, 
poetry,  language,  rhetoric,  ontology,  morals,  or 
practical  wisdom.  There  was  never  such  range 
of  speculation.  Out  of  Plato  come  all  things 
that  are  still  written  and  debated  among  men  of 
thought  Great  havoc  makes  he  among  our  orig- 
inalities. We  have  reached  the  mountain  from 
which  all  these  drift  bowlders  were  detached. 
The  BiUe  of  the  learned  for  twenty-two  hundred 
jeais,  every  brid^  young  man,  who  says  in  socces- 
43 


44  'Representative  /Eben 

sion  fine  things  to  each  reluctant  generation, — 
Boethius,  Rabelais,  Erasmus,  Bruno,  Locke, 
Rousseau,  Alfieri,  Coleridge, — is  some  reader  of 
Plato,  translating  into  the  vernacular,  wittily,  his 
good  things.  Even  the  men  of  grander  propor- 
tion suffer  some  deduction  from  the  misfortune 
(shall  I  say?)  of  coming  after  this  exhausting  gen- 
eralizer.  St.  Augustine,  Copernicus,  Newton, 
Behmen,  Swedenborg,  Goethe,  are  likewise  his 
debtors,  and  must  say  after  him.  For  it  is  fair  to 
credit  the  broadest  generalizer  with  all  the  partic- 
ulars deducible  from  his  thesis. 

Plato  is  philosophy,  and  philosophy,  Plato, — 
at  once  the  glory  and  the  shame  of  mankind, 
since  neither  Saxon  nor  Roman  have  availed  to 
add  any  idea  to  his  categories.  No  wife,  no  chil- 
dren had  he,  and  the  thinkers  of  all  civilized 
nations  are  his  posterity,  and  are  tinged  with  his 
mind.  How  many  great  men  Nature  is  inces- 
santly sending  up  out  of  night,  to  be  his  men, — 
Platonists  !  the  Alexandrians,  a  constellation  of 
genius ;  the  Elizabethans,  not  less ;  Sir  Thomas 
More,  Henry  More,  John  Hales,  John  Smith, 
Lord  Bacon,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Ralph  Cud  worth, 
Sydenham,  Thomas  Taylor ;  Marcilius  Ficinus, 
and  Picus  Mirandola.  Calvinism  is  in  his  Phaedo  : 
Christianity  is  in  it.     Mahometanism  draws  all  its 


Plato;  or,  tbe  ipbllosopber  45 

philosophy,  in  its  hand-book  of  morals,  the 
Akhlak-y-Jalaly,  from  him.  Mysticism  finds  in 
Plato  all  its  texts.  This  citizen  of  a  town  in 
Greece  is  no  villager  nor  patriot.  An  Englishman 
reads  and  says,  '' how  English  !  "  a  German — 
"  how  Teutonic  !  "  an  Italian — '^  how  Roman  and 
how  Greek  !  "  As  they  say  that  Helen  of  Argos  had 
that  universal  beauty  that  every  body  felt  related 
to  her,  so  Plato  seems,  to  a  reader  in  New  Eng- 
land, an  American  genius.  His  broad  humanity 
transcends  all  sectional  lines. 

This  range  of  Plato  instructs  us  what  to  think 
of  the  vexed  question  concernmg  his  reputed 
works, — what  are  genuine,  what  spurious.  It  is 
singular  that  wherever  we  find  a  man  higher,  by 
a  whole  head,  than  any  of  his  contemporaries,  it 
is  sure  to  come  into  doubt,  what  are  his  real  works. 
Thus,  Homer,  Plato,  Raffaelle,  Shakspeare.  For 
these  men  magnetize  their  contemporaries,  so  that 
their  companions  can  do  for  them  what  they  can 
never  do  for  themselves  ;  and  the  great  man  does 
thus  live  in  several  bodies,  and  write,  or  paint,  or 
act,  by  many  hands ;  and  after  some  time,  it  is  not 
easy  to  say  what  is  the  authentic  work  of  the 
master,  and  what  is  only  of  his  school. 

Plato,  too,  like  every  great  man,  consumed  his 
own  times.  What  is  a  great  man,  but  one  of  great 
4 


46  IRcprcsentative  /ften 

affinities,  who  takes  up  into  himself  all  arts, 
sciences,  all  knowables,  as  his  food  ?  He  can 
spare  nothing ;  he  can  dispose  of  everything.  What 
is  not  good  for  virtue,  is  good  for  knowledge. 
Hence  his  contemporaries  tax  him  with  plagiarism. 
But  the  inventor  only  knows  how  to  borrow  ;  and 
society  is  glad  to  forget  the  innumerable  laborers 
who  ministered  to  this  architect,  and  reserves  all 
its  gratitude  for  him.  When  we  are  praising  Plato, 
it  seems  we  are  praising  quotations  from  Solon, 
and  Sophron,  and  Philolaus.  Be  it  so.  Every 
book  is  a  quotation  ;  and  every  house  is  a  quota- 
tion out  of  all  forests,  and  mines,  and  stone 
quarries :  and  every  man  is  a  quotation  from  all 
his  ancestors.  And  this  grasping  inventor  puts  all 
nations  under  contribution. 

Plato  absorbed  the  learning  of  his  times, — 
Philolaus,  Timaeus,  Heraclitus,  Parmenides,  and 
what  else  ;  then  his  master,  Socrates  j  and  finding 
himself  still  capable  of  a  larger  synthesis, — beyond 
all  example  then  or  since, — he  travelled  into 
Italy,  to  gain  what  Pythagoras  had  for  him  ;  then 
into  Egypt,  and  perhaps  still  further  east,  to 
import  the  other  element,  which  Europe  wanted, 
into  the  European  mirid.  This  breadth  entitles 
him  to  stand  as  the  representative  of  philosophy. 
He  says,  in   the   Republic,    "Such   a  genius   as 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbilosopbcr  47 

philosophers  must  of  necessity  have,  is  wont  but 
seldom,  in  all  its  parts,  to  meet  in  one  man  ;  but 
its  different  parts  generally  spring  up  in  different 
persons."  Every  man,  who  would  do  any  thing 
well,  must  come  to  it  from  a  higher  ground.  A 
philosopher  must  be  more  than  a  philosopher. 
Plato  is  clothed  with  the  powers  of  a  poet,  stands 
upon  the  highest  place  of  the  poet,  and  (though 
I  doubt  he  wanted  the  decisive  gift  of  lyric  expres- 
sion) mainly  is  not  a  poet,  because  he  chose  to  use 
the  poetic  gift  to  an  ulterior  purpose. 

Great  geniuses  have  the  shortest  biographies. 
Their  cousins  can  tell  you  nothing  about  them. 
They  lived  in  their  writings,  and  so  their  house 
and  street  life  was  trivial  and  commonplace.  If 
you  would  know  their  tastes  and  complexions, 
the  most  admiring  of  their  readers  most  resembles 
them.  Plato,  especially,  has  no  external  biog- 
raphy. If  he  had  lover,  wife,  or  children,  we 
hear  nothing  of  them.  He  ground  them  all  into 
paint.  As  a  good  chimney  burns  its  smoke,  so  a 
philosopher  converts  the  value  of  all  his  fortunes 
into  his  intellectual  performances. 

He  was  born  430  A.  C,  about  the  time  of  the 
death  of  Pericles ;  was  of  patrician  connection  in 
his  times  and  city ;  and  is  said  to  have  had  an 
early  inclination  for  war ;  but  in  his  twentieth  year, 


48  IRcprescntative  It^cn 

meeting  with  Socrates,  was  easily  dissuaded  from 
this  pursuit,  and  remained  for  ten  years  his  scholar, 
until  the  death  of  Socrates.  He  then  went*  to 
Megara;  accepted  the  invitations  of  Dion  and  of 
Dionysius,  to  the  court  of  Sicily ;  and  went  thither 
three  times,  though  very  capriciously  treated. 
He  travelled  into  Italy ;  then  into  Egypt,  where 
he  stayed  a  long  time  ;  some  say  three, — some  say 
thirteen  years.  It  is  said,  he  went  farther,  into 
Babylonia;  this  is  uncertain.  Returning  to 
Athens,  he  gave  lessons,  in  the  Academy,  to  those 
whom  his  fame  drew  thither  ;  and  died,  as  we  have 
received  it,  in  the  act  of  writing,  at  eighty-one 
years. 

But  the  biography  of  Plato  is  interior.  We  are 
to  account  for  the  supreme  elevation  of  this  man, 
in  the  intellectual  history  of  our  race, — how  it 
happens  that,  in  proportion  to  the  culture  of  men, 
they  become  his  scholars ;  that,  as  our  Jewish 
Bible  has  implanted  itself  in  the  table-talk  and 
household  life  of  every  man  and  woman  in  the 
European  and  American  nations,  so  the  writings 
of  Plato  have  preoccupied  every  school  of  learn- 
ing, every  lover  of  thought,  every  church,  every 
poet, — making  it  impossible  to  think,  on  certain 
levels,  except  through  him.  He  stands  between 
the  truth  and  every  man's  mind,  and  has  almost 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbilosopber  49 

impressed  language,  and  the  primary  forms  of 
thought,  with  his  name  and  seal.  I  am  struck,  in 
reading  him,  with  the  extreme  modernness  of  his 
style  and  spirit.  Here  is  the  germ  of  that  Europe 
we  know  so  well,  in  its  long  history  of  arts  and 
arms :  here  are  all  its  traits,  already  discernible  in 
the  mind  of  Plato, — and  in  none  before  him.  It 
has  spread  itself  since  into  a  hundred  histories, 
but  has  added  no  new  element.  This  perpetual 
modernness  is  the  measure  of  merit,  in  every  work 
of  art ;  since  the  author  of  it  was  not  misled  by 
any  thing  short-lived  or  local,  but  abode  by  real 
and  abiding  traits.  How  Plato  came  thus  to  be 
Europe,  and  philosophy,  and  almost  literature,  is 
the  problem  for  us  to  solve. 

This  could  not  have  happened,  without  a  sound, 
sincere,  and  catholic  man,  able  to  honor,  at  the 
same  time,  the  ideal,  or  laws  of  the  mind,  and 
fate,  or  the  order  of  nature.  The  first  period  of  a 
nation,  as  of  an  individual,  is  the  period  of 
unconscious  strength.  Children  cry,  scream  and 
stamp  with  fury,  unable  to  express  their  desires. 
As  soon  as  they  can  speak  and  tell  their  want, 
and  the  reason  of  it,  they  become  gentle.  In 
adult  life,  whilst  the  perceptions  are  obtuse,  men 
and  women  talk  vehemently  and  superlatively, 
blunder  and  quarrel:    their  manners  are  full  of 


5©  •Representative  ISsen 

desperation  ;  their  speech  is  full  of  oaths.  As 
soon  as,  with  culture,  things  have  cleared  up  a 
little,  and  they  see  them  no  longer  in  lumps  and 
masses,  but  accurately  distributed,  they  desist 
from  that  weak  vehemence,  and  explain  their 
meaning  in  detail.  "If  the  tongue  had  not  been 
framed  for  articulation,  man  would  still  be  a 
beast  in  the  forest.  The  same  weakness  and  want, 
on  a  higher  plane,  occurs  daily  in  the  education 
of  ardent  young  men  and  women.  *'Ah!  you 
don't  understand  me ;  I  have  never  met  with  any 
one  who  comprehends  me:  "  and  they  sigh  and 
weep,  write  verses,  and  walk  alone, — fault  of 
power  to  express  their  precise  meaning.  In  a 
month  or  two,  through  the  favor  of  their  good 
genius,  they  meet  some  one  so  related  as  to  assist 
their  volcanic  estate;  and,  good  communication 
being  once  established,  they  are  thenceforward 
good  citizens.  It  is  ever  thus.  The  progress  is 
to  accuracy,  to  skill,  to  truth,  from  blind  force. 
There  is  a  moment,  in  the  history  of  every 
nation,  when,  proceeding  out  of  this  brute  youth, 
the  perceptive  powers  reach  their  ripeness,  and 
have  not  yet  become  microscopic  :  so  that  man,  at 
that  instant,  extends  across  the  entire  scale  ;  and, 
with  his  feet  still  planted  on  the  immense  forces 
of  night,  converses,  by  his  eyes  and  brain,  with 


Plato ;  or,  tbe  pbllosopbcc  51 

solar  and  stellar  creation.  That  is  the  moment 
of  adult  health,  the  culmination  of  power. 

Such  is  the  history  of  Europe,  in  all  points ;  and 
such  in  philosophy.  Its  early  records,  almost  per- 
ished, are  of  the  immigrations  from  Asia,  bringing 
with  them  the  dreams  of  barbarians;  a  confusion 
of  crude  notions  of  morals,  and  of  natural  philos- 
ophy, gradually  subsiding,  through  the  partial 
insight  of  single  teachers. 

Before  Pericles,  came  the  Seven  Wise  Masters ; 
and  we  have  the  beginnings  of  geometry,  meta- 
physics, and  ethics:  then  the  partialists, — dedu- 
cing the  origin  of  things  from  flux  or  water,  or  from 
air,  or  from  fire,  or  from  mind.  All  mix  with 
these  causes  mythologic  pictures.  At  last,  comes 
Plato,  the  distributor,  who  needs  no  barbaric 
paint,  or  tattoo,  or  whooping;  for  he  can  define. 
He  leaves  with  Asia  the  vast  and  superlative ;  he 
is  the  arrival  of  accuracy  and  intelligence.  '^  He 
shall  be  as  a  god  to  me,  who  can  rightly  divide 
and  define." 

This  defining  is  philosophy.  Philosophy  is  the 
account  which  the  human  mind  gives  to  itself  of 
the  constitution  of  the  world.  Two  cardinal  facts 
lie  forever  at  the  base ;  the  one,  and  the  two. — 
I.  Unity,  or  Identity;  and,  2.  Variety.  We  unite 
all  things,  by  perceiving  the  law  which  pervades 

U.   >F  ILL  LIB. 


$2  "Kcprescntative  /Ren 

them ;  by  perceiving  the  superficial  differences,  and 
the  profound  resemblances.  But  every  mental 
act, — this  very  perception  of  identity  or  oneness, 
recognizes  the  difference  of  things.  Oneness  and 
otherness.  It  is  impossible  to  speak,  or  to  think, 
without  embracing  both. 

The  mind  is  urged  to  asked  for  one  cause  of 
many  effects ;  then  for  the  cause  of  that;  and  again 
the  cause,  diving  still  into  the  profound:  self- 
assured  that  it  shall  arrive  at  an  absolute  and 
sufficient  one, — a  one  that  shall  be  all.  "  In  the 
midst  of  the  sun  is  the  light,  in  the  midst  of  the 
light  is  truth,  and  in  the  midst  of  truth  is  the 
imperishable  being,"  say  the  Vedas.  All  philoso- 
phy, of  east  and  west,  has  the  same  centripetence. 
Urged  by  an  opposite  necessity,  the  mind  returns 
from  the  one,  to  that  which  is  not  one,  but  other 
or  many ;  from  cause  to  effect ;  and  afifirms  the 
necessary  existence  of  variety,  the  self-existence 
of  both,  as  each  is  involved  in  the  other.  These 
strictly-blended  elements  it  is  the  problem  of 
thought  to  separate,  and  to  reconcile.  Their 
existence  is  mutually  contradictory  ;md  exclusive; 
and  each  so  fast  slides  into  the  other,  that  we  can 
never  say  what  is  one,  and  what  it  is  not.  The 
Proteus  is  as  nimble  in  the  highest  as  in  the  lowest 
grounds,  when  we  contemplate  the  one,  the  true, 


Plato;  or,  tbc  pbllosopber  53 

the  good, — as  in  the  surfaces  and  extremities  of 
matter. 

In  all  nations,  there  are  minds  which  incline  to 
dwell  in  the  conception  of  the  fundamental  Unity. 
The  raptures  of  prayer  and  ecstasy  of  devotion 
lose  all  being  in  one  Being.  This  tendency  finds 
its  highest  expression  in  the  religious  writings  of 
the  East,  and  chiefly,  in  the  Indian  Scriptures,  in 
the  Vedas,  the  Bhagavat  Geeta,  and  the  Vishnu 
Purana.  Those  writings  contain  little  else  than 
this  idea,  and  they  rise  to  pure  and  sublime  strains 
in  celebrating  it. 

The  Same,  the  Same  :  friend  and  foe  are  of  one 
stuff;  the  ploughman,  the  plough,  and  the  furrow, 
are  of  one  stuff;  and  the  stuff  is  such,  and  so 
much,  that  the  variations  of  forms  are  unimpor- 
tant. ''You  are  fit"  (saysthe  supreme  Krishna  to  a 
sage)  ' '  to  apprehend  that  you  are  not  distinct  from 
me.  That  which  I  am,  thou  art,  and  that  also  is 
this  world,  with  its  gods,  and  heroes,  and  man- 
kind. Men  contemplate  distinctions,  because 
they  are  stupefied  with  ignorance."  ''  The  words 
/  and  mtng  constitute  ignorance.  What  is  the 
great  end  of  all,  you  shall  now  learn  from  me. 
It  is  soul, — one  in  all  bodies,  pervading,  uniform, 
perfect,  preeminent  over  nature,  exempt  from 
birth,  growth,  and  decay,  omnipresent,  made  up 


54  'Rcprcecntative  /Ben 

of  true  knowledge,  independent,  unconnected 
with  unrealities,  with  name,  species,  and  the  rest, 
in  time  past,  present,  and  to  come.  The  knowl- 
edge that  this  spirit,  which  is  essentially  one,  is  in 
one's  own,  and  in  all  other  bodies,  is  the  wisdom 
of  one  who  knows  the  unity  of  things.  As  one 
diffusive  air,  passing  through  the  perforations  of  a 
flute,  is  distinguished  as  the  notes  of  a  scale,  so 
the  nature  of  the  Great  Spirit  is  single,  though  its 
forms  be  manifold,  arising  from  the  consequences 
of  acts.  When  the  difference  of  the  investing 
form,  as  that  of  god,  or  the  rest,  is  destroyed, 
there  is  no  distinction."  *^The  whole  world  is 
but  a  manifestation  of  Vishnu,  who  is  identical 
with  all  things,  and  is  to  be  regarded  by  the  wise, 
as  not  differing  from,  but  as  the  same  as  them- 
selves. I  neither  am  going  nor  coming ;  nor  is  my 
dwelling  in  any  one  place ;  nor  art  thou,  thou ;  nor 
are  others,  others;  nor  am  I,  I."  As  if  he  had 
said,  "All  is  for  the  soul,  and  the  soul  is  Vishnu; 
and  animals  and  stars  are  transient  paintings ;  and 
light  is  whitewash ;  and  durations  are  deceptive  : 
and  form  is  imprisonment ;  and  heaven  itself  a 
decoy."  That  which  the  soul  seeks  is  resolution 
into  being,  above  form,  out  of  Tartarus,  and  out 
of  heaven, — liberation  from  nature. 

If  speculation  tends  thus  to  a  terrific  unity,  in 


Plato ;  or,  tbe  iPbUosopbet  55 

which  all  things  are  absorbed,  action  tends  directly 
backwards  to  diversity.  The  first  is  the  course  of 
gravitation  of  mind  ;  the  second  is  the  power  of 
nature.  Nature  is  the  manifold.  The  unity 
absorbs,  and  melts  or  reduces.  Nature  opens  and 
creates.  These  two  principles  reappear  and  inter- 
penetrate all  things,  all  thought ;  the  one,  the 
many.  One  is  being  ;  the  other,  intellect :  one 
is  necessity ;  the  other,  freedom  :  one,  rest ;  the 
other,  motion  :  one,  power  ;  the  other,  distribu- 
tion :  one,  strength ;  the  other  pleasure :  one, 
consciousness  ;  the  other,  definition  :  one,  genius; 
the  other,  talent :  one,  earnestness ;  the  other, 
knowledge  :  one,  possession  ;  the  other,  trade : 
one,  caste ;  the  other,  culture :  one  king ;  the 
other,  democracy:  and,  if  we  dare  carry  these 
generalizations  a  step  higher,  and  name  the  last 
tendency  of  both,  we  might  say,  that  the  end  of 
the  one  is  escape  from  organization,  —  pure 
science ;  and  the  end  of  the  other  is  the  highest 
instrumentality,  or  use  of  means,  or  executive  deity. 
Each  student  adheres,  by  temperament  and  by 
habit,  to  the  first  or  to  the  second  of  these  gods 
of  the  mind.  By  religion,  he  tends  to  unity;  by 
intellect,  or  by  the  senses,  to  the  many.  A  too  rapid 
unification,  and  an  excessive  appliance  to  parts 
and  particulars,  are  the  twin  dangers  of  speculation. 


56  "Representative  ^en 

To  this  partiality  the  history  of  nations  corre- 
sponded. The  country  of  unity,  of  immovable 
institutions,  the  seat  of  a  philosophy  delighting 
in  abstractions,  of  men  faithful  in  doctrine  and 
in  practice  to  the  idea  of  a  deaf,  unimplorable, 
immense  fate,  is  Asia  ;  and  it  realizes  this  faith  in 
the  social  institution  of  caste.  On  the  other  side, 
the  genius  of  Europe  is  active  and  creative  :  it 
resists  caste  by  culture  ;  its  philosophy  was  a  dis- 
cipline ;  it  is  a  land  of  arts,  inventions,  trade, 
freedom.  If  the  East  loved  infinity,  the  West 
delighted  in  boundaries. 

European  civility  is  the  triumph  of  talent,  the 
extension  of  system,  the  sharpened  understanding, 
adaptive  skill,  delight  in  forms,  delight  in  man- 
ifestation, in  comprehensible  results.  Pericles, 
Athens,  Greece,  had  been  working  in  this  element 
with  the  joy  of  genius  not  yet  chilled  by  any  fore- 
sight of  the  detriment  of  an  excess.  They  saw 
before  them  no  sinister  political  economy;  no 
ominous  Malthus  ;  no  Paris  or  London  ;  no  piti- 
less subdivision  of  classes, — the  doom  of  the  pin- 
makers,  the  doom  of  the  weavers,  of  dressers,  of 
stockingers,  of  carders,  of  spinners,  of  colliers ; 
no  Ireland  ;  no  Indian  caste,  superinduced  by  the 
efforts  of  Europe  to  throw  it  off.  The  under- 
standing was  in  its  health  and  prime.     Art  was  in 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbllosopbet  S7 

its  splendid  novelty.  They  cut  the  Pentelican 
marble  as  if  it  were  snow,  and  their  perfect  works 
in  architecture  and  sculpture  seemed  things  of 
course,  not  more  difficult  than  the  completion  of 
a  new  ship  at  the  Medford  yards,  or  new  mills  at 
Lowell.  These  things  are  in  course,  and  may  be 
taken  for  granted.  The  Roman  legion,  Byzan- 
tine legislation,  English  trade,  the  saloons  of 
Versailles,  the  cafes  of  Paris,  the  steam-mill, 
steamboat,  steam-coach,  may  all  be  seen  in  per- 
spective ;  the  town-meeting,  the  ballot-box,  the 
newspaper  and  cheap  press. 

Meantime,  Plato,  in  Egypt  and  in  Eastern  pil- 
grimages, imbibed  the  idea  of  one  Deity,  in  which 
all  things  are  absorbed.  The  unity  of  Asia,  and 
the  detail  of  Europe ;  the  infinitude  of  the  Asiatic 
soul,  and  the  defining,  result-loving,  machine- 
making,  surface-seeking,  opera-going  Europe, — 
Plato  came  to  join,  and  by  contact  to  enhance 
the  energy  of  each.  The  excellence  of  Europe 
and  Asia  are  in  his  brain.  Metaphysics  and  natu- 
ral philosophy  expressed  the  genius  of  Europe; 
he  substructs  the  religion  of  Asia,  as  the  base. 

In  short,  a  balanced  soul  was  born,  perceptive 
of  the  two  elements.  It  is  as  easy  to  be  great  a> 
to  be  small.  The  reason  why  we  do  not  at  once 
believe  in  admirable  souls,  is  because  they  are  not 


58  "Representative  /Ren 

in  our  experience.  In  actual  life,  they  are  so  rare, 
as  to  be  incredible ;  but,  primarily,  there  is  not 
only  no  presumption  against  them,  but  the  strong- 
est presumption  in  favor  of  their  appearance.  But 
whether  voices  were  heard  in  the  sky,  or  not; 
whether  his  mother  or  his  father  dreamed  that  the 
infant  man-child  was  the  son  of  Apollo;  whether 
a  swarm  of  bees  settled  on  his  lips,  or  not ;  a  man 
who  could  see  two  sides  of  a  thing  was  born.  The 
wonderful  synthesis  so  familiar  in  nature;  the 
upper  and  the  under  side  of  the  medal  of  Jove ; 
the  union  of  impossibilities,  which  reappears  in 
every  object ;  its  real  and  its  ideal  power, — was 
now,  also,  transferred  entire  to  the  consciousness 
of  a  man. 

The  balanced  soul  came.  If  he  loved  abstract 
truth,  he  saved  himself  by  propounding  the  most 
popular  of  all  principles,  the  absolute  good,  which 
rules  rulers,  and  judges  the  judge.  If  he  made 
transcendental  distinctions,  he  fortified  himself  by 
drawing  all  his  illustrations  from  sources  disdained 
by  orators  and  polite  conversers ;  from  mares  and 
puppies;  from  pitchers  and  soup-ladles;  from  cooks 
and  criers;  the  shops  of  potters,  horse-doctors, 
butchers,  and  fishmongers.  He  cannot  forgive 
in  himself  a  partiality,  but  is  resolved  that  the  two 
poles  of  thought  shall  appear   in   his  statement. 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbilosopbec  59 

His  argument  and  his  sentence  are  self-poised  and 
spherical.  The  two  poles  appear;  yes,  and  be- 
come two  hands,  to  grasp  and  appropriate  their 
own. 

Every  great  artist  has  been  such  by  synthesis. 
Our  strength  is  transitional,  alternating;  or,  shall 
I  say,  a  thread  of  two  strands.  The  sea-shore,  sea 
seen  from  shore,  shore  seen  from  sea;  the  taste 
of  two  metals  in  contact;  and  our  enlarged  powers 
at  the  approach  and  at  the  departure  of  a  friend ; 
the  experience  of  poetic  creativeness,  which  is  not 
found  in  staying  at  home,  nor  yet  in  travelling, 
but  in  transitions  from  one  to  the  other,  which 
must  therefore  be  adroitly  managed  to  present  as 
much  transitional  surface  as  possible ;  this  com- 
mand of  two.  elements  must  explain  the  power  and 
the  charm  of  Plato.  Art  expresses  the  one,  or  the 
same  by  the  different.  Thought  seeks  to  know 
unity  in  unity ;  poetry  to  show  it  by  variety;  that 
is,  always  by  an  object  or  symbol.  Plato  keeps 
the  two  vases,  one  of  sether  and  one  of  pigment, 
at  his  side,  and  invariably  uses  both.  Things 
added  to  things,  as  statistics,  civil  history,  are 
inventories.  Things  used  as  language  are  inex- 
haustibly attractive.  Plato  turns  incessantly  the 
obverse  and  the  reverse  of  the  medal  of  Jove. 

To  take   an   example:— The  physical  philoso- 


6o  •Representative  ^en 

phers  had  sketched  each  his  theory  of  the  world  ; 
the  theory  of  atoms,  of  fire,  of  flux,  of  spirit; 
theories  mechanical  and  chemical  in  their  genius. 
Plato,  a  master  of  mathematics,  studious  of  all 
natural  laws  and  causes,  feels  these,  as  second 
causes,  to  be  no  theories  of  the  world,  but  bare 
inventories  and  lists.  To  the  study  of  nature  he 
therefore  prefixes  the  dogma, — ''Let  us  declare 
the  cause  which  led  the  Supreme  Ordainer  to  pro- 
duce and  compose  the  universe.  He  was  good  ; 
and  he  who  is  good  has  no  kind  of  envy.  Ex- 
empt from  envy,  he  wished  that  all  things  should 
be  as  much  as  possible  like  himself.  Whosoever, 
taught  by  wise  men,  shall  admit  this  as  the  prime 
cause  of  the  origin  and  foundation  of  the  world, 
will  be  in  the  truth."  ''All  things  are  for  the 
sake  of  the  good,  and  it  is  the  cause  of  every 
thing  beautiful."  This  dogma  animates  and  im- 
personates his  philosophy. 

The  synthesis  which  makes  the  character  of  his 
mind  appears  in  all  his  talents.  Where  there  is 
great  compass  of  wit,  we  usually  find  excellencies 
that  combine  easily  in  the  living  man,  but  in  de- 
scription appear  incompatible.  The  mind  of 
Plato  is  not  to  be  exhibited  by  a  Chinese  cata- 
logue, but  is  to  be  apprehended  by  an  original 
mind  in  the  exercise  of  its  original   power.     Id 


Plato ;  or,  tbe  ipbtlosopber  6i 

him  the  freest  abandonment  is  united  with  the 
precision  of  a  geometer.  His  daring  imagination 
gives  him  the  more  solid  grasp  of  facts ;  as  the 
birds  of  highest  flight  have  the  strongest  alar 
bones.  His  patrician  polish,  his  intrinsic  elegance, 
edged  by  an  irony  so  subtle  that  it  stings  and  par- 
alyzes, adorn  the  soundest  health  and  strength  of 
frame.  According  to  the  old  sentence,  ''  If  Jove 
should  descend  to  the  earth,  he  would  speak  in 
the  style  of  Plato." 

With  this  palatial  air,  there  is,  for  the  direct  aim 
of  several  of  his  works,  and  running  through  the 
tenor  of  them  all,  a  certain  earnestness,  which 
mounts,  in  the  Republic,  and  in  the  Phaedo,  to 
piety.  He  has  been  charged  with  feigning  sick- 
ness at  the  time  of  the  death  of  Socrates.  But 
the  anecdotes  that  have  come  down  from  the  times 
attest  his  manly  interference  before  the  people  in 
his  master's  behalf,  since  even  the  savage  cry  of 
the  assembly  to  Plato  is  preserved ;  and  the  in- 
dignation towards  popular  government,  in  many 
of  his  pieces,  expresses  a  personal  exasperation. 
He  has  a  probity,  a  native  reverence  for  justice 
and  honor,  and  a  humanity  which  makes  him  ten- 
der for  the  superstitions  of  the  people.  Add  to 
this,  he  believes  that  poetry,  prophecy,  and  the 
high  insight,  are  from  a  wisdom  of  which  man  is 
5 


62  •Representative  ^en 

not  master ;  that  the  gods  never  philosophize ; 
but,  by  a  celestial  mania,  these  miracles  are  ac- 
complished. Horsed  on  these  winged  steeds,  he 
sweeps  the  dim  regions,  visits  worlds  which  flesh 
cannot  enter ;  he  saw  the  souls  in  pain  ;  he 
hears  the  doom  of  the  judge  ;  he  beholds  the  penal 
metempsychosis;  the  Fates,  with  the  rock  and 
shears ;  and  hears  the  intoxicating  hum  of  their 
spindle. 

But  his  circumspection  never  forsook  him.  One 
would  say,  he  had  read  the  inscription  on  the 
gates  of  Busyrane, — ''Be  bold;"  and  on  the 
second  gate, — *'  Be  bold,  be  bold,  and  evermore 
be  bold  ;"  and  then  again  had  paused  well  at  the 
third  gate, — "  Be  not  too  bold."  His  strength  is 
like  the  momentum  of  a  falling  planet ;  and  his 
discretion,  the  return  of  its  due  and  perfect  curve, 
— so  excellent  is  his  Greek  love  of  boundary,  and 
his  skill  in  definition.  In  reading  logarithms,  one 
is  not  more  secure,  than  in  following  Plato  in  his 
flights.  Nothing  can  be  colder  than  his  head, 
when  the  lightnings  of  his  imagination  are  play- 
ing in  the  sky.  He  has  finished  his  thinking, 
before  he  brings  it  to  the  reader ;  and  he  abounds 
in  the  surprises  of  a  literary  master.  He  has  that 
opulence  which  furnishes,  at  every  turn,  the  pre- 
cise weapon  he  needs.     As  the  rich  man  wears  no 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbilosopbei  63 

more  garments,  drives  no  more  horses,  sits  in  no 
more  chambers,  than  the  poor, — but  has  that  one 
dress,  or  equipage,  or  instrument,  which  is  fit  for 
the  hour  and  the  need ;  so  Plato,  in  his  plenty,  is 
never  restricted,  but  has  the  fit  word.  There  is, 
indeed,  no  weapon  in  all  the  armory  of  wit  which 
he  did  not  possess  and  use, — epic,  analysis,  mania, 
intuition,  music,  satire,  and  irony,  down  to  the 
customary  and  polite.  His  illustrations  are  poetry, 
and  his  jests  illustrations.  Socrates'  profession  of 
obstetric  art  is  good  philosophy ;  and  his  finding 
that  word  *' cookery,"  and  *' adulatory  art,"  for 
rhetoric,  in  the  Gorgias,  does  us  a  substantial  ser- 
vice still.  No  orator  can  measure  in  effect  with 
him  who  can  give  good  nicknames. 

What  moderation,  and  understatement,  and 
checking  his  thunder  in  mid  volley  !  He  has 
good-naturedly  furnished  the  courtier  and  citizen 
with  all  that  can  be  said  against  the  schools. 
*'  For  philosophy  is  an  elegant  thing,  if  any  one 
modestly  meddles  with  it ;  but,  if  he  is  conver- 
sant with  it  more  than  is  becoming,  it  corrupts 
the  man."  He  could  well  afford  to  be  generous, 
— he,  who  from  the  sunlike  centrality  and  reach 
of  his  vision,  had  a  faith  without  cloud.  Such  as  his 
perception,  was  his  speech:  he  plays  with  the 
doubt,  and  makes  the  most  of  it :  he   paints   and 


64  "Representative  /iBen 

quibbles ;  and  by  and  by  comes  a  sentence  that 
moves  the  sea  and  land.  The  admirable  earnest 
comes  not  only  at  intervals,  in  the  perfect  yes  and 
no  of  the  dialogue,  but  in  bursts  of  light.  "1, 
therefore,  Callicles,  am  persuaded  by  these  ac- 
counts, and  consider  how  I  may  exhibit  my  soul 
before  the  judge  in  a  healthy  condition.  Where- 
fore, disregarding  the  honors  that  most  men  value, 
and  looking  to  the  truth,  I  shall  endeavor  in 
reality  to  live  as  virtuously  as  I  can ;  and,  when 
I  die,  to  die  so.  And  I  invite  all  other  men,  to 
the  utmost  of  my  power ;  and  you,  too,  I  in  turn 
invite  to  this  contest,  which,  I  affirm,  surpasses 
all  contests  here." 

He  is  a  great  average  man  one  who,  to  the 
best  thinking,  adds  a  proportion  and  equality  in 
his  faculties,  so  that  men  see  in  him  their  own 
dreams  and  glimpses  made  available,  and  made  to 
pass  for  what  they  are.  A  great  common  sense  is 
his  warrant  and  qualification  to  be  the  world's  in- 
terpreter. He  has  reason,  as  all  the  philosophic  and 
poetic  class  have  :  but  he  has,  also,  what  they  have 
not, — this  strong  solving  sense  to  reconcile  his 
poetry  with  the  appearances  of  the  world,  and 
build  a  bridge  from  the  streets  of  cities  to  the  At- 
lantis. He  omits  never  this  graduation,  but  slopes 
his  thought,  however  picturesque  the  precipice  on 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbllosopber  65 

one  side,  to  an  access  from  the  plain.     He  never 
writes  in  ecstasy,  or  catches  us  up  into  poetic  rapture. 

Plato  apprehended  the  cardinal  facts.  He  could 
prostrate  himself  on  the  earth,  and  cover  his  eyes, 
whilst  he  adored  that  which  cannot  be  numbered, 
or  gauged,  or  known,  or  named:  that  of  which 
everything  can  be  affirmed  and  denied :  that 
*' which  is  entity  and  nonentity."  He  called  it 
super-essential.  He  even  stood  ready,  as  in  the 
Parmenides,  to  demonstrate  that  it  was  so, — that 
this  Being  exceeded  the  limits  of  intellect.  No 
man  ever  more  fully  acknowledged  the  Ineffable. 
Having  paid  his  homage,  as  for  the  human  race, 
to  the  Illimitable,  he  then  stood  erect,  and  for  the 
human  race  affirmed,  '*  And  yet  things  are  know- 
able!  " — that  is,  the  Asia  in  his  mind  was  first 
heartily  honored, — the  ocean  of  love  and  power, 
before  form,  before  will,  before  knowledge,  the 
Same,  the  Good,  the  One ;  and  now,  refreshed 
and  empowered  by  this  worship,  the  instinct  of 
Europe,  namely,  culture,  returns;  and  he  cries. 
Yet  things  are  knowable!  They  are  knowable, 
because,  being  from  one,  things  correspond. 
There  is  a  scale:  and  the  correspondence  of 
heaven  to  earth,  of  matter  to  mind,  of  the  part  to 
the  whole,  is  our  guide.     As  there  is  a  science  of 


66  IRepresentatlve  /Ren 

stars,  called  astronomy ;  a  science  of  quantities, 
called  mathematics;  a  science  of  qualities,  called 
chemistry;  so  there  is  a  science  of  sciences, — I 
call  it  Dialectic, — which  is  the  Intellect  discrim- 
inating the  false  and  the  true.  It  rests  on  the 
observation  of  identity  and  diversity;  for,  to  judge, 
is  to  unite  to  an  object  the  notion  which  belongs  to 
it.  The  sciences,  even  the  best, — mathematics, 
and  astronomy, — are  like  sportsmen,  who  seize 
whatever  prey  offers,  even  without  being  able  to 
make  any  use  of  it.  Dialectic  must  teach  the  use 
of  them.  ''This  is  of  that  rank  that  no  intellec- 
tual man  will  enter  on  any  study  for  its  own  sake, 
but  only  with  a  view  to  advance  himself  in  that 
one  sole  science  which  embraces  all." 

'*  The  essence  or  peculiarity  of  man  is  to  com- 
prehend the  whole ;  or  that  which,  in  the  diversity 
of  sensations,  can  be  comprised  under  a  rational 
unity."  ''The  soul  which  has  never  perceived 
the  truth,  cannot  pass  into  the  human  form."  I 
announce  to  men  the  Intellect.  I  announce  the 
good  of  being  interpenetrated  by  the  mind  that 
made  nature:  this  benefit,  namely,  that  it  can 
understand  nature,  which  it  made  and  maketh. 
Nature  is  good,  but  intellect  is  better :  as  the  law- 
giver is  before  the  law-receiver.  I  give  you  joy, 
O  sons  of  men  !    that  truth   is  altogether  whole- 


Plato;  or,  tbe  IPbllosopber  67 

some  ;  that  we  have  hope  to  search  out  what  might 
be  the  very  self  of  everything.  The  misery  of 
rnan  is  to  be  baulked  of  the  sight  of  essence,  and  to 
be  stuffed  with  conjecture :  but  the  supreme  good  is 
reality;  the  supreme  beauty  is  reality;  and  all 
virtue  and  all  felicity  depend  on  this  science  of  the 
real:  for  courage  is  nothing  else  than  knowledge: 
the  fairest  fortune  that  can  befall  man,  is  to  be 
guided  by  his  daemon  to  that  which  is  truly  his 
own.  This  also  is  the  essence  of  justice, — to 
attend  every  one  his  own:  nay,  the  notion  of  vir- 
tue is  not  to  be  arrived  at,  except  through  direct 
contemplation  of  the  divine  essence.  Courage, 
then!  for,  *'the  persuasion  that  we  must  search 
that  which  we  do  not  know,  will  render  us,  beyond 
comparison,  better,  braver,  and  more  industrious, 
than  if  we  thought  it  impossible  to  discover  what 
we  do  not  know,  and  useless  to  search  for  it." 
He  secures  a  position  not  to  be  commanded,  by 
his  passion  for  reality;  valuing  philosophy  only 
as  it  is  the  pleasure  of  conversing  with  real  being. 
Thus,  full  of  the  genius  of  Europe,  he  said. 
Culture.  He  saw  the  institutions  of  Sparta,  and 
recognized  more  genially,  one  would  say,  than 
any  since,  the  hope  of  education.  He  delighted 
in  every  accomplishment,  in  every  graceful  and 
useful  and  truthful  performance ;  above  all,  in  the 


€8  IReprcaentatlve  ^en 

splendors  of  genius  and  intellectual  achievement. 
"  The  whole  of  life,  O  Socrates,  said  Glauco,  is, 
with  the  wise,  the  measure  of  hearing  such  dis- 
courses as  these. ' '  What  a  price  he  sets  on  the 
feats  of  talent,  on  the  powers  of  Pericles,  of 
Isocrates,  of  Parmenides !  What  price,  above 
price,  on  the  talents  themselves  !  He  called  the 
several  faculties,  gods,  in  his  beautiful  personation. 
What  value  he  gives  to  the  art  of  gymnastics  in 
education;  what  to  geometry;  what  to  music; 
what  to  astronomy,  whose  appeasing  and  medi- 
cinal power  he  celebrates!  In  the  Timaeus,  he 
indicates  the  highest  employment  of  the  eyes. 
*'By  us  it  is  asserted,  that  God  invented  and  be- 
stowed sight  on  us  for  this  purpose, — that,  on 
surveying  the  circles  of  intelligence  in  the  heavens, 
we  might  properly  employ  those  of  our  own  minds, 
v/hich,  though  disturbed  when  compared  with  the 
others  that  are  uniform,  are  still  allied  to  their  cir- 
culations; and  that,  having  thus  learned,  and 
being  naturally  possessed  of  a  correct  reasoning 
faculty,  we  might,  by  imitating  the  uniform  revo- 
lutions of  divinity,  set  right  our  own  wanderings 
and  blunders."  And  in  the  Republic, — ^^  By  each 
of  these  disciplines,  a  certain  organ  of  the  soul  is 
both  purified  and  reanimated,  which  is  blinded 
and  buried  by  studies  of  another  kind ;  an  organ 


^lato ;  or,  tbe  pbflosopber  69 

better  worth  saving  than  ten  thousand  eyes,  since 
truth  is  perceived  by  this  alone." 

He  said,  Culture ;  but  he  first  admitted  its 
basis,  and  gave  immeasurably  the  first  place  to 
advantages  of  nature.  His  patrician  tastes  laid 
stress  on  the  distinctions  of  birth.  In  the  doctrine 
•of  the  organic  character  and  disposition  is  the 
origin  of  caste.  ''Such  as  were  fit  to  govern,  into 
their  composition  the  informing  Deity  mingled 
_gold:  into  the  military,  silver;  iron  and  brass  for 
busbandmen  and  artificers."  The  East  confirms 
itself,  in  all  ages,  in  this  faith.  The  Koran  is  ex- 
plicit on  this  point  of  caste.  "  Men  have  their 
metal,  as  of  gold  and  silver.  Those  of  you  who 
were  the  worthy  ones  in  the  state  of  ignorance, 
-will  be  the  worthy  ones  in  the  state  of  faith,  as 
soon  as  you  embrace  it."  Plato  was  not  less  firm. 
^'Of  the  five  orders  of  things,  only  four  can  be 
taught  to  the  generality  of  men."  In  the  Repub- 
lic, he  insists  on  the  temperaments  of  the  youth, 
as  the  first  of  the  first. 

A  happier  example  of  the  stress  laid  on  nature, 
is  in  the  dialogue  with  the  young  Theages,  who 
wishes  to  receive  lessons  from  Socrates.  Socrates 
declares  that,  if  some  have  grown  wise  by  asso- 
ciating with  him,  no  thanks  are  due  to  him ;  but, 
simply,   whilst   they   were  with   him,    they  grew 


TO  TRcprescntattvc  ISscn 

wise,  not  because  of  him;  he  pretends  not  to 
know  the  way  of  it.  ''It  is  adverse  to  many^ 
nor  can  those  be  benefited  by  associating  with 
me,  whom  the  Daemon  opposes  ;  so  that  it  is  not 
possible  for  me  to  live  with  these.  With  many, 
however,  he  does  not  prevent  me  from  convers- 
ing, who  yet  are  not  at  all  benefited  by  associating 
with  me.  Such,  O  Theages,  is  the  association 
with  me  ;  for,  if  it  pleases  the  God,  you  will  make 
great  and  rapid  proficiency :  you  will  not,  if  he 
does  not  please.  Judge  whether  it  is  not  safer  to 
be  instructed  by  some  one  of  those  who  have 
power  over  the  benefit  which  they  impart  to 
men,  than  by  me,  who  benefit  or  not,  just  as  it 
may  happen."  As  if  he  had  said,  ''I  have  no 
system.  I  cannot  be  answerable  for  you.  You 
will  be  what  you  must.  If  there  is  love  between 
us,  inconceivably  delicious  and  profitable  will  our 
intercourse  be ;  if  not,  your  time  is  lost,  and  you 
will  only  annoy  me.  I  shall  seem  to  you  stupid, 
and  the  reputation  I  have,  false.  Quite  above  us, 
beyond  the  will  of  you  or  me,  is  this  secret  affinity 
or  repulsion  laid.  All  my  good  is  magnetic,  and 
I  educate,  not  by  lessons,  but  by  going  about  my 
business." 

He   said.  Culture;    he   said.   Nature:    and   he 
failed  not  to   add,  "There  is  also  the  divine.'* 


Plato;  or,  tbe  Ipblloeopbet  7» 

There  is  no  thought  in  any  mind,  but  it  quickly 
tends  to  convert  itself  into  a  power,  and  organizes 
a  huge  instrumentality  of  means.  Plato,  lover 
of  limits,  loved  the  illimitable,  saw  the  enlarge- 
ment and  nobility  which  come  from  truth  itself 
and  good  itself,  and  attempted,  as  if  on  the 
part  of  the  human  intellect,  once  for  all,  to  do  it 
adequate  homage, — homage  fit  for  the  immense 
soul  to  receive,  and  yet  homage  becoming  the 
intellect  to  render.  He  said,  then,  ''  Our  faculties 
run  out  into  infinity,  and  return  to  us  thence. 
We  can  define  but  a  little  way;  but  here  is  a  fact 
which  will  not  be  skipped,  and  which  to  shut  our 
eyes  upon  is  suicide.  All  things  are  in  a  scale ; 
and,  begin  where  we  will,  ascend  and  ascend. 
All  things  are  symbolical ;  and  what  we  call 
results  are  beginnings." 

A  key  to  the  method  and  completeness  of  Plato 
is  his  twice  bisected  line.  After  he  has  illustrated 
the  relation  between  the  absolute  good  and  true, 
and  the  forms  of  the  intelligible  world,  he  says : — 
*'Let  there  be  a  line  cut  in  two  unequal  parts. 
Cut  again  each  of  these  two  parts, — one  represent- 
ing the  visible,  the  other  the  intelligible  world, — 
and  these  two  new  sections,  representing  the  bright 
part  and  the  dark  part  of  these  worlds,  you  will 
have,  for  one  of  the  sections  of  the  visible  world, — 


72  IReprescntative  flben 

images,  that  is,  both  shadows  and  reflections ;  for 
the  other  section,  the  objects  of  these  images, — 
that  is,  plants,  animals,  and  the  works  of  art  and 
nature.  Then  divide  the  intelligible  world  in 
like  manner  ;  the  one  section  will  be  of  opinions 
and  hypotheses,  and  the  other  section,  of  truths." 
To  these  four  sections,  the  four  operations  of  the 
soul  correspond, — conjecture,  faith,  understand- 
ing, reason.  As  every  pool  reflects  the  image  of 
the  sun,  so  every  thought  and  thing  restores  us 
an  image  and  creature  of  the  supreme  Good. 
The  universe  is  perforated  by  a  million  channels 
for  his  activity.     All  things  mount  and  mount. 

All  his  thought  has  this  ascension  ;  in  Phaedrus, 
teaching  that  *' beauty  is  the  most  lovely  of  all 
things,  exciting  hilarity,  and  shedding  desire  and 
confidence  through  the  universe,  wherever  it 
enters;  and  it  enters,  in  some  degree,  into  all 
things  :  but  that  there  is  another,  which  is  as  much 
more  beautiful  than  beauty,  as  beauty  is  than  chaos ; 
namely,  wisdom,  which  our  wonderful  organ  of 
sight  cannot  reach  unto,  but  which,  could  it  beseen, 
would  ravish  us  with  its  perfect  reality."  He  has 
the  same  regard  to  it  as  the  source  of  excellence  in 
works  of  art.  ''When  an  artificer,  in  the  fabri- 
cation of  any  work,  looks  to  that  which  always 
subsists  according  to  the  same  ;  and,  employing  a 


Plato ;  oVf  tbe  lPbil06opber  73 

model  of  this  kind,  expresses  its  idea  and  power 
in  his  work ;  it  must  follow,  that  his  production 
should  be  beautiful.  But  when  he  beholds  that 
which  is  born  and  dies,  it  will  be  far  from 
beautiful." 

Thus  ever :  the  Banquet  is  a  teaching  in  the 
same  spirit,  familiar  now  to  all  the  poetry,  and  to 
all  the  sermons  of  the  world,  that  the  love  of 
the  sexes  is  initial ;  and  symbolizes,  at  a  distance, 
the  passion  of  the  soul  for  that  immense  lake  of 
beauty  it  exists  to  seek.  This  faith  in  the  Divin- 
ity is  never  out  of  mind,  and  constitutes  the  lim- 
itation of  all  his  dogmas.  Body  cannot  teach 
wisdom ; — God  only.  In  the  same  mind,  he 
constantly  affirms  that  virtue  cannot  be  taught; 
that  it  is  not  a  science,  but  an  inspiration ;  that 
the  greatest  goods  are  produced  to  us  through 
mania,  and  are  assigned  to  us  by  a  divine  gift. 

This  leads  me  to  that  central  figure,  which  he 
has  established  in  his  Academy,  as  the  organ 
through  which  every  considered  opinion  shall  be 
announced,  and  whose  biography  he  has  likewise 
so  labored,  that  the  historic  facts  are  lost  in  the 
light  of  Plato's  mind.  Socrates  and  Plato  are  the 
double  star,  which  the  most  powerful  instruments 
will  not  entirely  separate.  Socrates,  again,  in  his 
traits  and   genius,  is   the   best   example   of  that 


74  "Representative  Aen 

synthesis  which  constitutes  Plato's  extraordinary 
power.  Socrates,  a  man  of  humble  stem,  but 
honest  enough ;  of  the  commonest  history ;  of  a 
personal  homeliness  so  remarkable,  as  to  be  a 
cause  of  wit  in  others, — the  rather  that  his  broad 
good  nature  and  exquisite  taste  for  a  joke  invited 
the  sally,  which  was  sure  to  be  paid.  The  play- 
ers personated  him  on  the  stage ;  the  potters  copied 
his  ugly  face  on  their  stone  jugs.  He  was  a  cool 
fellow,  adding  to  his  humor  a  perfect  temper,  and 
a  knowledge  of  his  man,  be  he  who  he  might 
whom  he  talked  with,  which  laid  the  companion 
open  to  certain  defeat  in  any  debate, — and  in 
debate  he  immoderately  delighted.  The  young 
men  are  prodigiously  fond  of  him,  and  invite  him 
to  their  feasts,  whither  he  goes  for  conversation. 
He  can  drink,  too ;  has  the  strongest  head  in 
Athens  ;  and,  after  leaving  the  whole  party  under 
the  table,  goes  away,  as  if  nothing  had  happened, 
to  begin  new  dialogues  with  somebody  that  is 
sober.  In  short,  he  was  what  our  country- 
people  call  an  old  one. 

He  affected  a  good  many  citizen-like  tastes,  was 
monstrously  fond  of  Athens,  hated  trees,  never 
willingly  went  beyond  the  walls,  knew  the  old 
characters,  valued  the  bores  and  philistines, 
thought  every  thing  in  Athens  a  little  better  than 


Plato ;  or,  tbe  IPbilosopber  75 

any  tnmg  in  any  other  place.  He  was  plain  as  a 
Quaker  in  habit  and  speech,  affected  low  phrases, 
and  illustrations  from  cocks  and  quails,  soup-pans 
and  sycamore-spoons,  grooms  and  farriers,  and 
unnameable  offices,  — especially  if  he  talked  with 
any  superfine  person.  He  had  a  Franklinlike 
wisdom.  Thus,  he  showed  one  who  was  afraid  to 
go  on  foot  to  Olympia,  that  it  was  no  more  than 
his  daily  walk  within  doors,  if  continuously  ex- 
tended, would  easily  reach. 

Plain  old  uncle  as  he  was,  with  his  great  ears, 
— an  immense  talker, — the  rumor  ran,  that,  on  one 
or  two  occasions,  in  the  war  with  Bceotia,  he  had 
shown  a  determination  which  had  covered  the  re- 
treat of  a  troop  ;  and  there  was  some  story  that, 
linder  cover  of  folly,  he  had,  in  the  city  govern- 
ment, when  one  day  he  chanced  to  hold  a  seat 
there,  evinced  a  courage  in  opposing  singly  the 
popular  voice,  which  had  well-nigh  ruined  him. 
He  is  very  poor ;  but  then  he  is  hardy  as  a  sol- 
dier, and  can  live  on  a  few  olives;  usually,  in 
the  strictest  sense,  on  bread  and  water,  except 
when  entertained  by  his  friends.  His  necessary 
expenses  were  exceedingly  small,  and  no  one  could 
live  as  he  did.  He  wore  no  under  garment;  his 
upper  garment  was  the  same  for  summer  and  win- 
ter;  and  he  went  barefooted ;  and  it  is  said  that, 


76  •Representative  /ften 

to  procure  the  pleasure,  which  he  loves,  of  talking 
at  his  ease  all  day  with  the  most  elegant  and  cul- 
tivated young  men,  he  will  now  and  then  return 
to  his  shop,  and  carve  statues,  good  or  bad,  for 
sale.  However  that  be,  it  is  certain  that  he  had 
grown  to  delight  in  nothing  else  than  this  conver- 
sation ;  and  that,  under  his  hypocritical  pretense 
of  knowing  nothing,  he  attacks  and  brings  down 
all  the  fine  speakers,  all  the  fine  philosophers  of 
Athens,  whether  natives,  or  strangers  from  Asia 
Minor  and  the  islands.  Nobody  can  refuse  to  talk 
with  him,  he  is  so  honest,  and  really  curious  to 
know  j  a  man  who  was  willingly  confuted,  if  he 
did  not  speak  the  truth,  and  who  willingly  con- 
futed others,  asserting  what  was  false;  and  not 
less  pleased  when  confuted  than  when  confuting; 
for  he  thought  not  any  evil  happened  to  men,  of 
such  a  magnitude  as  false  opinion  respecting  the 
just  and  unjust.  A  pitiless  disputant,  who  knows 
nothing,  but  the  bounds  of  whose  conquering  in-f 
telligence  no  man  had  ever  reached  ;  whose  tem- 
per was  imperturbable  ;  whose  dreadful  logic  was 
always  leisurely  and  sportive ;  so  careless  and  ignor- 
ant as  to  disarm  the  wariest,  and  draw  them,  in 
the  pleasantest  manner,  into  horrible  doubts  and 
confusion.  But  he  always  knew  the  way  out ;  knew 
it,  yet  would  not  tell  it.  No  escape ;  he  drives  them 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbilosopbec  77 

to  terrible  choices  by  his  dilemmas,  and  tosses  the 
Hippiases  and  Gorgiases,  with  their  grand  repu- 
tations, as  a  boy  tosses  his  balls.  The  tyran- 
nous realist ! — Meno  has  discoursed  a  thousand 
times,  at  length,  on  virtue,  before  many  companies, 
and  very  well,  as  it  appeared  to  him ;  but,  at  this 
moment,  he  cannot  even  tell  what  it  is, — this 
cramp-fish  of  a  Socrates  has  so  bewitched  him. 

This  hard-headed  humorist,  whose  strange  con- 
ceits, drollery,  and  bonhommie,  diverted  the  young 
patricians,  whilst  the  rumor  of  his  sayings  and 
quibbles  gets  abroad  every  day,  turns  out,  in  the 
sequel,  to  have  a  probity  as  invincible  as  his  logic 
and  to  be  either  insane,  or,  at  least,  under  covei 
of  this  play,  enthusiastic  in  his  religion.  When 
accused  before  the  judges  of  subverting  the  popu- 
lar creed,  he  affirms  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
the  future  reward  and  punishment ;  and,  refusing 
to  recant,  in  a  caprice  of  the  popular  govern- 
ment, was  condemned  to  die,  and  sent  to  the 
prison.  Socrates  entered  the  prison,  and  took 
away  all  ignominy  from  the  place,  which  could 
not  be  a  prison,  whilst  he  was  there.  Crito  bribed 
the  jailer;  but  Socrates  would  not  go  out  by 
treachery.  ''Whatever  inconvenience  ensue, 
nothing  is  to  be  preferred  before  justice.  These 
things  I  hear  like  pipes  and  drums,  whose  sound 
6 


78  TReprescntatlve  /ften 

makes  me  deaf  to  every  thing  you  say."  The 
fame  of  this  prison,  the  fame  of  the  discourses 
there,  and  the  drinking  of  the  hemlock,  are  one 
of  the  most  precious  passages  in  the  history  of  the 
world. 

The  rare  coincidence,  in  one  ugly  body,  of  the 
droll  and  the  martyr,  the  keen  street  and  market 
debater  with  the  sweetest  saint  known  to  any  his- 
tory at  that  time,  had  forcibly  struck  the  mind  of 
Plato,  so  capacious  of  these  contrasts;  and  the 
figure  of  Socrates,  by  a  necessity,  placed  itself  in 
the  foreground  of  the  scene,  as  the  fittest  dis- 
penser of  the  intellectual  treasures  he  had  to  com- 
municate. It  was  a  rare  fortune,  that  this  ^sod 
of  the  mob,  and  this  robed  scholar,  should  meet, 
to  make  each  other  immortal  in  their  mutual 
faculty.  The  strange  synthesis,  in  the  character 
of  Socrates,  capped  the  synthesis  in  the  mind  of 
Plato.  Moreover,  by  this  means,  he  was  able,  in 
the  direct  way,  and  without  envy,  to  avail  himself 
of  the  wit  and  weight  of  Socrates,  to  which  un- 
questionably his  own  debt  was  great ;  and  these 
derived  again  their  principal  advantage  from  the 
perfect  art  of  Plato. 

It  remains  to  say,  that  the  defect  of  Plato  in 
power  is  only  that  which  results  inevitably  from 
his  quality.     He  is  intellectual  in    his   aim ;    and, 


Plato;  or,  tbe  ipbllosopber  79 

therefore,  in  expression,  literary.  Mounting  into 
heaven,  driving  into  the  pit,  expounding  the  laws 
of  the  state,  the  passion  of  love,  the  remorse  of 
crime,  the  hope  of  the  parting  soul, — he  is  literary, 
and  never  otherwise.  It  is  almost  the  sole  deduc- 
tion from  the  merit*  of  Plato,  that  his  writings 
have  not, — what  is,  no  doubt,  incident  to  this 
regnancy  of  intellect  in  his  work, — the  vital 
authority  which  the  screams  of  prophets  and  the 
sermons  of  unlettered  Arabs  and  Jews  possess. 
There  is  an  interval ;  and  to  cohesion,  contact  is 
necessary. 

I  know  not  what  can  be  said  in  reply  to  this 
criticism,  but  that  we  have  come  to  a  fact  in  the 
nature  of  things  :  an  oak  is  not  an  orange.  The 
qualities  of  sugar  remain  with  sugar,  and  those  of 
salt,  with  salt. 

In  the  second  place,  he  has  not  a  system.  The 
dearest  defenders  and  disciples  are  at  fault.  He 
attempted  a  theory  of  the  universe,  and  his  theory 
is  not  complete  or  self-evident.  One  man  thinks 
he  means  this ;  and  another,  that :  he  has  said  one 
thing  in  one  place,  and  the  reverse  of  it  in  another 
place.  He  is  charged  with  having  failed  to  make 
the  transition  from  ideas  to  matter.  Here  is  the 
world,  sound  as  a  nut,  perfect,  not  the  smallest 
piece  of  chaos  left,  never  a  stitch  nor  an  end,  not 


<o  *Repre0entatfv>e  /iBen 

a  mark  of  haste,  or  botching,  or  second  thought ; 
but  the  theory  of  the  world  is  a  thing  of  shreds 
and  patches. 

The  longest  wave  is  quickly  lost  in  the  sea. 
Plato  would  willingly  have  a  Platonism,  a  known 
and  accurate  expression  for  the  world,  and  it 
should  be  accurate.  It  shall  be  the  world  passed 
through  the  mind  of  Plato, — nothing  less.  Every 
atom  shall  have  the  Platonic  tinge ;  every  atom, 
every  relation  or  quality  you  knew  before,  you 
shall  know  again,  and  find  here,  but  now  ordered ; 
not  nature,  but  art.  And  you  shall  feel  that 
Alexander  indeed  overran,  with  men  and  horses, 
some  countries  of  the  planet ;  but  countries,  and 
things  of  which  countries  are  made,  elements, 
planet  itself,  laws  of  planet  and  of  men,  have 
passed  through  this  man  as  bread  into  his  body, 
and  become  no  longer  bread,  but  body:  so  all 
this  mammoth  morsel  has  become  Plato.  He  has 
clapped  copyright  on  the  world.  This  is  the 
ambition  of  individualism.  But  the  mouthful 
proves  too  large.  Boa  constrictor  has  good  will  to 
eat  it,  but  he  is  foiled.  He  falls  abroad  in  the 
attempt;  and  biting,  gets  strangled:  the  bitten 
world  holds  the  biter  fast  by  his  own  teeth. 
There  he  perishes:  unconquered  nature  lives  on, 
and  forgets  him.     So  it  fares  with  all :    so  must  it 


Plato;  or,  tbe  pbilosopber  8i 

fare  with  Plato.  In  view  of  eternal  nature,  Plato 
turns  out  to  be  philosophical  exercitations.  He 
argues  on  this  side,  and  on  that.  The  acutest 
German,  the  lovingest  disciple,  could  never  tell 
what  Platonism  was;  indeed,  admirable  texts  can 
be  quoted  on  both  sides  of  every  great  question 
from  him. 

These  things  we  are  forced  to  say,  if  we  must 
consider  the  effort  of  Plato,  or  of  any  philosopher, 
to  dispose  of  Nature, — which  will  not  be  disposed 
of.  No  power  of  genius  has  ever  yet  had  the 
smallest  success  in  explaining  existence.  The  per- 
fect enigma  remains.  But  there  is  an  injustice  in 
assuming  this  ambition  for  Plato.  Let  us  not  seem 
to  treat  with  flippancy  his  venerable  name.  Men, 
in  proportion  to  their  intellect,  have  admitted  his 
transcendent  claims.  The  way  to  know  him,  is  to 
compare  him,  not  with  nature,  but  with  other  men. 
How  many  ages  have  gone  by,  and  he  remains 
unapproached  !  A  chief  structure  of  human  wit, 
like  Karnac,  or  the  mediaeval  cathedrals,  or  the 
Etrurian  remains,  it  requires  all  the  breadth  of 
human  faculty  to  know  it.  I  think  it  is  truliest 
seen,  when  seen  with  the  most  respect.  His  sense 
deepens,  his  merits  multiply,  with  study.  When 
we  say,  here  is  a  fine  collection  of  fables;  or, 
when  we  praise  the  style  ;  or  the  common  sense ; 


82  IRcprcsentative  /iBcn 

or  arithmetic ;  we  speak  as  boys,  and  much  of  our 
impatient  criticism  of  the  dialectic,  I  suspect,  is  no 
better.  The  criticism  is  like  our  impatience  of 
miles,  when  we  are  in  a  hurry ;  but  it  is  still  best 
that  a  mile  should  have  seventeen  hundred  and 
sixty  yards.  The  great-eyed  Plato  proportioned 
the  lights  and  shades  after  the  genius  of  our  life. 


PLATO : 
NEW  READINGS. 


PLATO:   NEW  READINGS. 


The  publication,  in  Mr.  Bohn's  "Serial  Li- 
brary," of  the  excellent  translations  of  Plato, 
which  we  esteem  one  of  the  chief  benefits  the  cheap 
press  has  yielded,  gives  us  an  occasion  to  take 
hastily  a  few  more  notes  of  the  elevation  and  bear- 
ings of  this  fixed  star;  or,  to  add  a  bulletin,  like 
the  journals,  of  Plato  at  the  latest  dates. 

Modern  science,  by  the  extent  of  its  generaliza- 
tion, has  learned  to  indemnify  the  student  of  man 
for  the  defects  of  individuals,  by  tracing  growth 
and  ascent  in  races ;  and,  by  the  simple  expedient 
of  lighting  up  the  vast  background,  generates  a 
feeling  of  complacency  and  hope.  The  human 
being  has  the  saurian  and  the  plant  in  his  rear. 
His  arts  and  sciences,  the  easy  issue  of  his  brain, 
look  glorious  when  prospectively  beheld  from  the 
distant  brain  of  ox,  crocodile,  and  fish.  It  seems 
as  if  nature,  in   regarding   the  geologic  night  be- 

85 


86  IReprescntatlre  /Ren 

hind  her,  when,  in  five  or  six  millenniums,  she 
had  turned  out  five  or  six  men,  as  Homer,  Phidias, 
Menu,  and  Columbus,  was  no  wise  discontented 
with  the  result.  These  samples  attested  the  virtue 
of  the  tree.  These  were  a  clear  amelioration  of 
trilobite  and  saurus,  and  a  good  basis  for  further 
proceeding.  With  this  artist  time  and  space  are 
cheap,  and  she  is  insensible  of  what  you  say  of 
tedious  preparation.  She  waited  tranquilly  the 
flowing  periods  of  paleontology,  for  the  hour  to 
be  struck  when  man  should  arrive.  Then  periods 
must  pass  before  the  motion  of  the  earth  can  be 
suspected ;  then  before  the  map  of  the  instincts 
and  the  cultivable  powers  can  be  drawn.  But  as 
of  races,  so  the  succession  of  individual  men  is 
fatal  and  beautiful,  and  Plato  has  the  fortune,  in 
the  history  of  mankind,  to  mark  an  epoch. 

Plato's  fame  does  not  stand  on  a  syllogism,  or 
on  any  masterpieces  of  the  Socratic  reasoning,  or 
on  any  thesis,  as,  for  example,  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  He  is  more  than  an  expert,  or  a  school- 
man, or  a  geometer,  or  the  prophet  of  a  peculiar 
message.  He  represents  the  privilege  of  the  in- 
tellect, the  power,  namely,  of  carrying  up  every 
fact  to  successive  platforms,  and  so  disclosing,  in 
every  fact,  a  germ  of  expansion.  These  expan- 
sions are  in  the  essence  of  thought.     The  natu- 


Plato:  Bcw  IRcaMngs  87 

ralist  would  never  help  us  to  them  by  any  discov- 
eries of  the  extent  of  the  universe,  but  is  as  poor, 
when  cataloguing  the  resolved  nebula  of  Orion, 
as  when  measuring  the  angles  of  an  acre.  But 
the  Republic  of  Plato,  by  these  expansions, 
may  be  said  to  require,  and  so  to  anticipate,  the 
astronomy  of  Laplace.  The  expansions  are  or- 
ganic. The  mind  does  not  create  what  it  per- 
ceives, any  more  than  the  eye  creates  the  rose. 
In  ascribing  to  Plato  the  merit  of  announcing 
them,  we  only  say,  here  was  a  more  complete 
man,  who  could  apply  to  nature  the  whole  scale 
of  the  senses,  the  understanding,  and  the  reason. 
These  expansions,  or  extensions,  consist  in  contin- 
uing the  spiritual  sight  where  the  horizon  falls  on 
our  natural  vision,  and,  by  this  second  sight,  dis- 
covering the  long  lines  of  law  which  shoot  in 
every  direction.  Everywhere  he  stands  on  a 
path  which  has  no  end,  but  runs  continuously 
round  the  universe.  Therefore,  every  word 
becomes  an  exponent  of  nature.  Whatever  he 
looks  upon  discloses  a  second  sense,  and  ulterior 
senses.  His  perception  of  the  generation  of  con- 
traries, of  death  out  of  life,  and  life  out  of  death, 
— that  law  by  which,  in  nature,  decomposition  is 
recomposition,  and  putrefaction  and  cholera  are 
only  signals  of  a  new  creation  ;  his  discernment 


88  IRcprcscntative  /Ren 

of  the  little  in  the  large,  and  the  large  in  the 
small ;  studying  the  state  in  the  citizen,  and  the 
citizen  in  the  state;  and  leaving  it  doubtful 
whether  he  exhibited  the  Republic  as  an  allegory 
on  the  education  of  the  private  soul ;  his  beauti- 
ful definitions  of  ideas,  of  time,  of  form,  of  figure, 
of  the  line,  sometimes  hypothetically  given,  as 
his  defining  of  virtue,  courage,  justice,  temperance ;. 
his  love  of  the  apologue,  and  his  apologues  them- 
selves ;  the  cave  of  Trophonius ;  the  ring  of 
Gyges  ;  the  charioteer  and  two  horses  ;  the  golden, 
silver,  brass,  and  iron  temperaments;  Theuth  and 
Thamus ;  and  the  visions  of  Hades  and  the  Fates, 
— fables  which  have  imprinted  themselves  in  the 
human  memory  like  the  signs  of  the  zodiac;  his 
soliform  eye  and  his  boniform  soul ;  his  doctrine 
of  assimilation  ;  his  doctrine  of  reminiscence ;  his 
clear  vision  of  the  laws  of  return,  or  reaction, 
which  secure  instant  justice  throughout  the  uni- 
verse, instanced  every  where,  but  specially  in  the 
doctrine,  *^what  comes  from  God  to  us,  returns 
from  us  to  God,"  and  in  Socrates'  belief  that  the 
laws  below  are  sisters  of  the  laws  above. 

More  striking  examples  are  his  moral  conclu- 
sions. Plato  afiirms  the  coincidence  of  science 
and  virtue  ;  for  vice  can  never  know  itself  and 
virtue  ;  but  virtue   knows  both   itself  and   vice. 


Plato:  1FICW  IReaOinas  89 

The  eye  attested  that  justice  was  best,  as  long  as 
it  was  profitable  ;  Plato  affirms  that  it  is  profitable 
throughout ;  that  the  profit  is  intrinsic,  though  the 
just  conceal  his  justice  from  gods  and  men  ;  that 
it  is  better  to  suffer  injustice,  than  to  do  it ;  that 
the  sinner  ought  to  covet  punishment;  that  the 
lie  was  more  hurtful  than  homicide ;  and  that 
ignorance,  or  the  involuntary  lie,  was  more  calam- 
itous than  involuntary  homicide  ;  that  the  soul  is 
unwillingly  deprived  of  true  opinions ;  and  that 
no  man  sins  willingly  ;  that  the  order  of  proceed- 
ing of  nature  was  from  the  mind  to  the  body ; 
and,  though  a  sound  body  cannot  restore  an 
unsound  mind,  yet  a  good  soul  can,  by  its  virtue, 
render  the  body  the  best  possible.  The  intelligent 
have  a  right  over  the  ignorant,  namely,  the  right 
of  instructing  them.  The  right  punishment  of 
one  out  of  tune,  is  to  make  him  play  in  tune;  the 
fine  which  the  good,  refusing  to  govern,  ought  to 
pay,  is,  to  be  governed  by  a  worse  man  ;  that  his 
guards  shall  not  handle  gold  and  silver,  but  shall 
be  instructed  that  there  is  gold  and  silver  in  their 
souls,  which  will  make  men  willing  to  give  them 
every  thing  which  they  need. 

This  second  sight  explains  the  stress  laid  on 
geometry.  He  saw  that  the  globe  of  earth  was 
not  more  lawful  and  precise  than  was  the  super- 


go  IReprescntative  Ifbcn 

sensible ;  that  a  celestial  geometry  was  in  place 
there,  as  a  logic  of  lines  and  angles  here  below ; 
that  the  world  was  throughout  mathematical ;  the 
proportions  are  constant  of  oxygen,  azote,  and 
lime ;  there  is  just  so  much  water,  and  slate,  and 
magnesia;  not  less  are  the  proportions  constant  of 
moral  elements. 

This  eldest  Goethe,  hating  varnish  and  false- 
hood, delighted  in  revealing  the  real  at  the  base 
of  the  accidental ;  in  discovering  connection,  con- 
tinuity, and  representation,  everywhere;  hating 
insulation ;  and  appears  like  the  god  of  wealth 
among  the  cabins  of  vagabonds,  opening  power 
and  capability  in  everything  he  touches.  Ethical 
science  was  new  and  vacant,  when  Plato  could 
write  thus: — ''Of  all  whose  arguments  are  left  to 
the  men  of  the  present  time,  no  one  has  ever  yet 
condemned  injustice,  or  praised  justice,  otherwise 
than  as  respects  the  repute,  honors,  and  emolu- 
ments arising  therefrom  ;  while,  as  respects  either 
of  them  in  itself,  and  subsisting  by  its  own  power 
in  the  soul  of  the  possessor,  and  concealed  both 
from  gods  and  men,  no  one  has  yet  sufficiently  in- 
vestigated, either  in  poetry  or  prose  writings, — 
how,  namely,  that  the  one  is  the  greatest  of  all  the 
evils  that  the  soul  has  within  it,  and  justice  the 
greatest  good." 


Plato:  IRcw  IRcaOfnas  91 

His  definition  of  ideas,  as  what  is  simple, 
permanent,  uniform,  and  self-existent,  forever 
discriminating  them  from  the  notions  of  the 
understanding,  marks  an  era  in  the  world.  He 
was  born  to  behold  the  self-evolving  power  of 
spirit,  endless  generator  of  new  ends ;  a  power 
which  is  the  key  at  once  to  the  centrality  and 
the  evanescence  of  things.  Plato  is  so  centred, 
that  he  can  well  spare  all  his  dogmas.  Thus  the 
fact  of  knowledge  and  ideas  reveals  to  him  the 
fact  of  eternity ;  and  the  doctrine  of  reminiscence 
he  offers  as  the  most  probable  particular  explica- 
tion. Call  that  fanciful, — it  matters  not:  the 
connection  between  our  knowledge  and  the  abyss 
of  being  is  still  real,  and  the  explication  must  be 
not  less  magnificent. 

He  has  indicated  every  eminent  point  in  spec- 
ulation. He  wrote  on  the  scale  of  the  mind  itself, 
so  that  all  things  have  symmetry  in  his  tablet.  He 
put  in  all  the  past,  without  weariness,  and  de- 
scended into  detail  with  a  courage  like  that  he 
witnessed  in  nature.  One  would  say,  that  his 
forerunners  had  mapped  out  each  a  farm,  or  a  dis- 
trict, or  an  island,  in  intellectual  geography,  but 
that  Plato  first  drew  the  sphere.  He  domesticates 
the  soul  in  nature :  man  is  the  microcosm.  All 
the  circles  of  the  visible  heaven  represent  as  many 


92  IReprescntative  /Ren 

circles  in  the  rational  soul.  There  is  no  lawless 
particle,  and  there  is  nothing  casual  in  the  action, 
of  the  human  mind.  The  names  of  things,  too, 
are  fatal,  following  the  nature  of  things.  All  the 
gods  of  the  Pantheon  are,  by  their  names,  signifi- 
cant of  a  profound  sense.  The  gods  are  the  ideas. 
Pan  is  speech,  or  manifestation;  Saturn,  the 
contemplative;  Jove,  the  regal  soul;  and  Mars, 
passion.  Venus  is  proportion ;  Calliope,  the  soul 
of  the  world ;  Aglaia,  intellectual  illustration. 

These  thoughts,  in  sparkles  of  light,  had  ap- 
peared often  to  pious  and  to  poetic  souls;  but  this 
well-bred,  all-knowing  Greek  geometer  comes  with, 
command,  gathers  them  all  up  into  rank  and  grada- 
tion, the  Euclid  of  holiness,  and  marries  the  two 
parts  of  nature.  Before  all  men,  he  saw  the  intel- 
lectual values  of  the  moral  sentiment.  He  describes 
his  own  ideal,  when  he  paints  in  Timaeus  a  god 
leading  things  from  disorder  into  order.  He 
kindled  a  fire  so  truly  in  the  centre,  that  we  see 
the  sphere  illuminated,  and  can  distinguish  poles,- 
equator,  and  lines  of  latitude,  every  arc  and  node:: 
a  theory  so  averaged,  so  modulated,  that  you 
would  say,  the  winds  of  ages  had  swept  through 
this  rhythmic  structure,  and  not  that  it  was  the 
brief  extempore  blotting  of  one  short-lived  scribe. 


Plato:  IFlew  IReaMnfls  95 

Hence  it  has  happened  that  a  very  well-marked 
class  of  souls,  namely,  those  who  delight  in  giving 
a  spiritual,  that  is,  an  ethico-intellectual  expression 
to  every  truth,  by  exhibiting  an  ulterior  end  which  ' 
is  yet  legitimate  to  it,  are  said  to  Platonize.  Thus, 
Michel  Angelo  is  a  Platonist,  in  his  sonnets. 
Shakspeare  is  a  Platonist,  when  he  writes,  *' Nature 
is  made  better  by  no  mean,  but  nature  makes  that 
mean,"  or, 

"  He,  that  can  endure 
To  follow  with  allegiance  a  fallen  lord, 
Does  conquer  him  that  did  his  master  conquer, 
And  earns  a  place  in  the  story." 

Hamlet  is  a  pure  Platonist,  and  'tis  the  magnitude 
only  of  Shakspeare' s  proper  genius  that  hinders 
him  from  being  classed  as  the  most  eminent  of  this 
school.  Swedenborg,  throughout  his  prose  poem 
of  '* Conjugal  Love,"  is  a  Platonist. 

His  subtlety  commended  him  to  men  of  thought. 
The  secret  of  his  popular  success  is  the  moral  aim, 
which  endeared  him  to  mankind.  '*  Intellect," 
he  said,  ''  is  king  of  heaven  and  of  earth ; "  but, 
in  Plato,  intellect  is  always  moral.  His  writings 
have  also  the  sempiternal  youth  of  poetry.  For^ 
their  arguments,  most  of  them,  might  have  been' 
couched  in  sonnets:  and  poetry  has  never  soared 
higher  than  in  the  Timseus  and  the  Phaedrus.  As 
7 


94  IReprcsentatlvc  /IBcn 

the  poet,  too,  he  is  only  contemplative.  He  did 
not,  like  Pythagoras,  break  himself  with  an  institu- 
tion. All  his  painting  in  the  Republic  must  be 
esteemed  mythical,  with  intent  to  bring  out,  some- 
times in  violent  colors,  his  thought.  You  cannot 
institute,  without  peril  of  charlatan. 

It  was  a  high  scheme,  his  absolute  privilege  for 
the  best  (which,  to  make  emphatic,  he  expressed 
by  community  of  women),  as  the  premium  which 
he  would  set  on  grandeur.  There  shall  be  exempts 
of  two  kinds:  first,  those  who  by  demerit  have 
put  themselves  below  protection, — outlaws;  and 
secondly,  those  who  by  eminence  of  nature  and 
desert  are  out  of  the  reach  of  your  rewards :  let 
such  be  free  of  the  city,  and  above  the  law.  We 
confide  them  to  themselves  ;  let  them  do  with  us 
as  they  will.  Let  none  presume  to  measure  the 
irregularities  of  Michel  Angelo  and  Socrates  by 
village  scales. 

In  his  eighth  book  of  the  Republic,  he  throws 
a  little  mathematical  dust  in  our  eyes.  I  am  sorry 
to  see  him,  after  such  noble  superiorities,  permit- 
ting the  lie  to  governors.  Plato  plays  Providence 
a  little  with  the  baser  sort,  as  people  allow  them- 
selves with  their  dogs  and  cats. 


SWEDENBORG; 


OB. 


THE  MYSTIC. 


III. 

SWEDENBORG;  OR,  THE  MYSTIC. 


Among  eminent  persons,  those  who  are  most 
dear  to  men  are  not  the  class  which  the  economist 
calls  producers  :  they  have  nothing  in  their  hands; 
they  have  not  cultivated  corn,  nor  made  bread ; 
they  have  not  led  out  a  colony,  nor  invented  a 
loom.  A  higher  class,  in  the  estimation  and  love 
of  this  city-building,  market-going  race  of  man- 
kind, are  the  poets,  who,  from  the  intellectual 
kingdom,  feed  the  thought  and  imagination  with 
ideas  and  pictures  which  raise  men  out  of  the 
world  of  corn  and  money,  and  console  them  for 
the  short-comings  of  the  day,  and  the  meannesses 
of  labor  and  traffic.  Then,  also,  the  philosopher 
has  his  value,  who  flatters  the  intellect  of  this 
laborer,  by  engaging  him  with  subtleties  which  in- 
struct him  in  new  faculties.  Others  may  build 
cities;  he  is  to  understand  them,  and  keep  them 
97 


98  'Representative  Oscn 

in  awe.  But  there  is  a  class  who  lead  us  into 
another  region, — the  world  of  morals,  or  of  will. 
What  is  singular  about  this  region  of  thought,  is, 
its  claim.  Wherever  the  sentiment  of  right  comes 
in,  it  takes  precedence  of  every  thing  else.  For 
other  things,  I  make  poetry  of  them ;  but  the 
moral  sentiment  makes  poetry  of  me. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  he  would  render 
the  greatest  service  to  modern  criticism,  who  shall 
draw  the  line  of  relation  that  subsists  between 
Shakspeare  and  Swedenborg.  The  human  mind 
stands  ever  in  perplexity,  demanding  intellect, 
demanding  sanctity,  impatient  equally  of  each 
without  the  other.  The  reconciler  has  not  yet 
appeared.  If  we  tire  of  the  saints,  Shakspeare 
is  our  city  of  refuge.  Yet  the  instincts  presently 
teach,  that  the  problem  of  essence  must  take  pre- 
cedence of  all  others, — the  questions  of  Whence? 
What?  and  Whither?  and  the  solution  of  these 
must  be  in  a  life,  and  not  in  a  book.  A  drama  or 
poem  is  a  proximate  or  oblique  reply ;  but  Moses, 
Menu,  Jesus,  work  directly  on  this  problem.  The 
atmosphere  of  moral  sentiment  is  a  region  of 
grandeur  which  reduces  all  material  magnificence 
to  toys,  yet  opens  to  every  wretch  that  has  reason 
the  doors  of  the  universe.  Almost  with  a  fierce 
haste  it  lays  its  empire  on  the  man.     In  the   Ian- 


SweC)enborQ  ;  or,  tbc  /IBi^stfc  99 

guage  of  the  Koran,  '^  God,  said  the  heaven  and 
the  earth,  and  all  that  is  between  them,  think  ye 
that  we  created  them  in  jest,  and  that  ye  shall 
not  return  to  us?"  It  is  the  kingdom  of  the  will, 
and  by  inspiring  the  will,  which  is  the  seat  of 
personality,  seems  to  convert  the  universe  into  a 
person : — 

"  The  realms  of  being  to  no  other  bow, 
Not  only  all  are  thine,  but  all  are  Thou." 

All  men  are  commanded  by  the  saint.  The 
Koran  makes  a  distinct  class  of  those  who  are  by 
nature  good,  and  whose  goodness  has  an  influence 
on  others,  and  pronounces  this  class  to  be  the 
aim  of  creation  :  the  other  classes  are  admitted  to 
the  feast  of  being,  only  as  following  in  the  train 
of  this.  And  the  Persian  poet  exclaims  to  a  soul 
of  this  kind, — 

"  Go  boldly  forth,  and  feast  on  being's  banquet ; 
Thou  art  the  called, — the  rest  admitted  with  thee." 

The  privilege  of  this  caste  is  an  access  to  the 
secrets  and  structure  of  nature,  by  some  higher 
method  than  by  experience.  In  common  par- 
lance, what  one  man  is  said  to  learn  by  experience, 
a  man  of  extraordinary  sagacity  is  said,  without 
experience,   to   divine.     The  Arabians  say,  that 


loo  IRepresentatfve  Hbcn 

Abul  Khain,  the  mystic,  and  Abu  Ali  Seena,  the 
philosopher,  conferred  together ;  and,  on  parting, 
the  philosopher  said,  ''AH  that  he  sees,  I  know;  " 
and  the  mystic  said,  ''AH  that  he  knows,  I  see." 
If  one  should  ask  the  reason  of  this  intuition,  the 
solution  would  lead  us  into  that  property  which 
Plato  denoted  as  Reminiscence,  and  which  is 
implied  by  the  Bramins  in  the  tenet  of  Transmi- 
gration. The  soul  having  been  often  born,  or, 
as  the  Hindoos  say,  "travelling  the  path  of 
existence  through  thousands  of  births,"  having 
beheld  the  things  which  are  here,  those  which  are 
in  heaven,  and  those  which  are  beneath,  there  is 
nothing  of  which  she  has  not  gained  the  knowl- 
edge :  no  wonder  that  she  is  able  to  recoHect,  in 
regard  to  any  one  thing,  what  formerly  she  knew. 
"For,  all  things  in  nature  being  linked  and  related, 
and  the  soul  having  heretofore  known  all,  nothing 
hinders  but  that  any  man  who  has  recalled  to 
mind,  or,  according  to  the  common  phrase,  has 
learned  one  thing  only,  should  of  himself  recover 
all  his  ancient  knowledge,  and  find  out  again  all 
the  rest,  if  he  have  but  courage,  and  faint  not  in 
the  midst  of  his  researches.  For  inquiry  and  learn- 
ing is  reminiscence  all."  How  much  more,  if  he 
that  inquires  be  a  holy  and  godlike  soul !  For, 
by   being   assimilated    to    the   original   soul,    by 


SweDenborg ;  or,  tbc  ^^etic  loi 

whom,  and  after  whom,  all  things  subsist,  the 
soul  of  man  does  then  easily  flow  into  all  things, 
and  all  things  flow  into  it :  they  mix ;  and  he  is 
present  and  sympathetic  with  their  structure  and 
law. 

This  path  is  diflicult,  secret,  and  beset  with 
terror.  The  ancients  called  it  ecstasy  or  absence, 
— a  getting  out  of  their  bodies  to  think.  All 
religious  history  contains  traces  of  the  trance 
of  saints, — a  beatitude,  but  without  any  sign 
of  joy,  earnest,  solitary,  even  sad;  **the  flight," 
Plotinus  called  it,  **of  the  alone  to  the  alone;  " 
Mv£OLc,  the  closing  of  the  eyes, — whence  our 
word.  Mystic.  The  trances  of  Socrates,  Ploti- 
nus, Porphyry,  Behmen,  Bunyan,  Fox,  Pascal, 
Guion,  Swedenborg,  will  readily  come  to  mind. 
But  what  as  readily  comes  to  mind,  is,  the  accom- 
paniment of  disease.  This  beatitude  comes  in 
terror,  and  with  shocks  to  the  mind  of  the 
receiver.  "  It  o'erinforms  the  tenement  of  clay," 
and  drives  the  man  mad ;  or,  gives  a  certain 
violent  bias,  which  taints  his  judgment.  In  the 
chief  examples  of  religious  illumination,  some- 
what morbid  has  mingled,  in  spite  of  the  unques- 
tionable increase  of  mental  power.  Must  the 
highest  good  drag  after  it  a  quality  which  neu- 
tralizes and  discredits  it? — 


102  "Representative  ^en 

"  Indeed  it  takes 
From  our  achievements,  when  performed  at  height. 
The  pith  and  marrow  of  our  attribute." 

Shall  we  say,  that  the  economical  mother  dis- 
burses so  much  earth  and  so  much  fire,  by  weight 
and  metre,  to  make  a  man,  and  will  not  add  a 
pennyweight,  though  a  nation  is  perishing  for  a 
leader?  Therefore,  the  men  of  God  purchased 
their  science  by  folly  or  pain.  If  you  will  have 
pure  carbon,  carbuncle,  or  diamond,  to  make  the 
brain  transparent,  the  trunk  and  organs  shall  be 
so  much  the  grosser :  instead  of  porcelain,  they 
are  potter's  earth,  clay,  or  mud. 

In  modern  times,  no  such  remarkable  example 
of  this  introverted  mind  has  occurred,  as  in  Eman- 
uel Swedenborg,  born  in  Stockholm,  in  1688. 
This  man,  who  appeared  to  his  contemporaries  a 
visionary,  and  elixir  of  moonbeams,  no  doubt  led 
the  most  real  life  of  any  man  then  in  the  world  : 
and  now,  when  the  royal  and  ducal  Frederics, 
Cristierns,  and  Brunswicks,  of  that  day,  have  slid 
into  oblivion,  he  begins  to  spread  himself  into  the 
minds  of  thousands.  As  happens  in  great  men, 
he  seemed,  by  the  variety  and  amount  of  his 
powers,  to  be  a  composition  of  several  persons, —  ^ 
like  the  giant  fruits  which  are  matured  in  gardens 
by  the  union  of  four  or  five  single  blossoms.     His 


Swc^enbora;  or,  tbe  /Bb^stfc  103 

frame  is  on  a  larger  scale,  and  possesses  the  advan- 
tage of  size.  As  it  is  easier  to  see  the  reflection 
of  the  great  sphere  in  large  globes,  though 
defaced  by  some  crack  or  blemish,  than  in  drops  of 
water,  so  men  of  large  calibre,  though  with  some 
eccentricity  or  madness,  like  Pascal  or  Newton, 
help  us  more  than  balanced  mediocre  minds. 

His  youth  and  training  could  not  fail  to  be  ex- 
traordinary. Such  a  boy  could  not  whistle  or 
dance,  but  goes  grubbing  into  mines  and  moun- 
tains, prying  into  chemistry  and  optics,  physiology, 
mathematics,  and  astronomy,  to  find  images  fit  for 
the  measure  of  his  versatile  and  capacious  brain. 
He  was  a  scholar  from  a  child,  and  was  educated 
zt  Upsala.  At  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  he  was 
made  Assessor  of  the  Board  of  Mines,  by  Charles 
XII.  In  1 716,  he  left  home  for  four  years,  and, 
visited  the  universities  of  England,  Holland, 
France,  and  Germany.  He  performed  a  notable 
feat  of  engineering  in  1718,  at  the  siege  of  Fre- 
dericshall,  by  hauling  two  galleys,  five  boats, 
and  a  sloop,  some  fourteen  English  miles  overland, 
for  the  royal  service.  In  1721,  he  journeyed  over 
Europe,  to  examine  mines  and  smelting  works. 
He  published,  in  1716,  his  Daedalus  Hyperboreus, 
and,  from  this  time,  for  the  next  thirty  years,  was 
employed  in  the  composition  and  publication  of 


I04  'Representative  /ften 

his  scientific  works.  With  the  like  force,  he  threw 
himself  into  theology.  In  1743,  when  he  was 
fifty-four  years  old,  what  is  called  his  illumination 
began.  All  his  metallurgy,  and  transportation  of 
ships  overland,  was  absorbed  into  this  ecstasy.  He 
ceased  to  publish  any  more  scientific  books, 
withdrew  from  his  practical  labors,  and  devoted 
himself  to  the  writing  and  publication  of  his 
voluminous  theological  works,  which  were  printed 
at  his  own  expense,  or  at  that  of  the  Duke  of 
Brunswick,  or  other  prince,  at  Dresden,  Leipsic, 
London,  or  Amsterdam.  Later,  he  resigned  his 
office  of  Assessor :  the  salary  attached  to  this 
office  continued  to  be  paid  to  him  during  his  life. 
His  duties  had  brought  him  into  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  King  Charles  XIL,  by  whom  he 
was  much  consulted  and  honored.  The  like  favor 
was  continued  to  him  by  his  successor.  At  the 
Diet  of  1 75 1,  Count  Hopken  says,  the  most  solid 
memorials  on  finance  were  from  his  pen.  In 
Sweden,  he  appears  to  have  attracted  a  marked 
regard.  His-  rare  science  and  practical  skill,  and 
the  added  fame  of  second  sight  and  extraordinary 
religious  knowledge  and  gifts,  drew  to  him  queens, 
nobles,  clergy,  shipmasters,  and  people  about  the 
ports  through  which  he  was  wont  to  pass  in  his 
many  voyages.     The   clergy    interfered    a   little 


SweDenborg ;  or,  tbc  ^i^stic  105 

with  the  importation  and  publication  of  his  reli- 
gious works  ;  but  he  seems  to  have  kept  the  friend- 
ship of  men  in  power.  He  was  never  married. 
He  had  great  modesty  and  gentleness  of  bearing. 
His  habits  were  simple;  he  lived  on  bread, 
milk,  and  vegetables;  and  he  lived  in  a  house 
situated  in  a  large  garden  :  he  went  several  times 
to  England,  where  he  does  not  seem  to  have  at- 
tracted any  attention  whatever  from  the  learned  or 
the  eminent;  and  died  at  London,  March  29, 
1772,  of  apoplexy,  in  his  eighty-fifth  year.  He  is 
described,  when  in  London,  as  a  man  of  quiet, 
clerical  habit,  not  averse  to  tea  and  coffee,  and 
kind  to  children.  He  wore  a  sword  when  in  full 
velvet  dress,  and,  whenever  he  walked  out,  carried 
a  gold-headed  cane.  There  is  a  common  portrait 
of  him  in  antique  coat  and  wig,  but  the  face  has 
a  wandering  or  vacant  air. 

The  genius  which  was  to  penetrate  the  science 
of  the  age  with  a  far  more  subtle  science ;  to  pass 
the  bounds  of  space  and  time ;  venture  into  the 
dim  spirit-realm,  and  attempt  t  j  establish  a  new 
religion  in  the  world, — began  its  lessons  in  quar- 
ries and  forges,  in  the  smelting-pot  and  crucible, 
ir  ship-yards  and  dissecting-rooms.  No  one  man 
7  perhaps  able  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  his  works 
on  so  many  subjects.     One  is  glad  to  learn  that 


io6  IReprcsentative  /fccn 

his  books  on  mines  and  metals  are  held  in  the 
highest  esteem  by  those  who  understand  these 
matters.  It  seems  that  he  anticipated  much  sci- 
ence of  the  nineteenth  century ;  anticipated,  in 
astronomy,  the  discovery  of  the  seventh  planet. — 
but,  unhappily,  not  also  of  the  eighth ;  anticipated 
the  views  of  modern  astronomy  in  regard  to  the 
generation  of  earths  by  the  sun ;  in  magnetism, 
some  important  experiments  and  conclusions  of 
later  students;  in  chemistry,  the  atomic  theory;  in 
anatomy,  the  discoveries  of  Schlichting,  Monro, 
and  Wilson  ;  and  first  demonstrated  the  office  of 
the  lungs.  His  excellent  English  editor  mag- 
nanimously lays  no  stress  on  his  discoveries,  since 
he  was  too  great  to  care  to  be  original;  and  we 
are  to  judge,  by  what  he  can  spare,  of  what  re- 
mains. 

A  colossal  soul,  he  lies  vast  abroad  on  his  times, 
uncomprehended  by  them,  and  requires  a  long 
local  distance  to  be  seen ;  suggest,  as  Aristotle, 
Bacon,  Selden,  Humboldt,  that  a  certain  vastness 
of  learning,  or  quasi  omnipresence  of  the  human 
soul  in  nature,  is  possible.  His  superb  speculation, 
as  from  a  tower,  over  nature  and  arts,  without  ever 
losing  sight  of  the  texture  and  sequence  of  things, 
almost  realize  his  own  picture,  in  the  *'Principia," 
of  the  original  integrity  of  man.    Over  and  above 


Swe&enborg ;  or,  tbe  /llb^atic  107 

the  merit  of  his  particular  discoveries,  is  the  capi- 
tal merit  of  his  self-equality.  A  drop  of  water 
has  the  properties  of  the  sea,  but  cannot  exhibit  a 
storm.  There  is  beauty  of  a  concert,  as  well  as 
of  a  flute ;  strength  of  a  host,  as  well  as  of  a 
hero;  and,  in  Swedenborg,  those  who  are  best 
acquainted  with  modern  books  will  most  admire  the 
merit  of  mass.  One  oif  the  missouriums  and 
mastodons  of  literature,  he  is  not  to  be  measured 
by  whole  colleges  of  ordinary  scholars.  His  stal- 
wart presence  would  flutter  the  gowns  of  an  uni- 
versity. Our  books  are  false  by  being  fragmentary  ; 
their  sentences  are  don  mots,  and  not  parts  of 
natural  discourse;  childish  expressions  of  surprise 
or  pleasure  in  nature ;  or,  worse,  owing  a  brief 
notoriety  to  their  petulance,  or  aversion  from  the 
order  of  nature,  —  being  some  curiosity  or  oddity, 
designedly  not  in  harmony  with  nature,  and  pur- 
posely framed  to  excite  surprise,  as  jugglers  do  by 
concealing  their  means.  But  Swedenborg  is  sys- 
tematic, and  respective  of  the  world  in  every  sen- 
tence ;  all  the  means  are  orderly  given  ;  his  facul- 
ties work  with  astronomic  punctuality,  and  this 
admirable  writing  is  pure  from  all  pertness  or 
egotism. 

Swedenborg    was    born  into  an  atmosphere    of 
great  ideas.     'Tis  hard  to  say  what  was  his   own: 


io8  1Rcprc0entative  ^en 

yet  his  life  was  dignified  by  noblest  pictures  of  the 
universe.  The  robust  Aristotelian  method,  with  its 
breadth  and  adequateness,  shaming  our  sterile  and 
linear  logic  by  its  genial  radiation,  conversant  with 
series  and  degree,  with  effects  and  ends,  skilful  to 
discriminate  power  from  form,  essence  from  acci- 
dent, and  opening  by  its  terminology  and  defini- 
tion, high  roads  into  nature,  had  trained  a  race  of 
athletic  philosophers.  Harvey  had  shown  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  :  Gilbert  had  shown  that 
the  earth  was  a  magnet :  Descartes,  taught  by  Gil- 
bert's magnet,  with  its  vortex,  spiral,  and  polarity, 
had  filled  Europe  with  the  leading  thought  of  vor- 
tical motion,  as  the  secret  of  nature.  Newton,  in 
the  year  in  which  Swedenborg  was  born,  published 
the  '*  Principia,"  and  established  the  universal 
gravity.  Malpighi,  following  the  high  doctrines  of 
Hippocrates,  Leucippus,  and  Lucretius,  had  given 
emphasis  to  the  dogma  that  nature  works  in  leasts, 
—  '*  tota  in  minimis  existit  natura."  Unrivalled 
dissectors,  Swammerdam,  Leeuwenhoek,  Winslow, 
Eustachius,  Heister,  Vesalius,  Boerhaave,  had  left 
nothing  for  scalpel  or  microscope  to  reveal  in 
human  or  comparative  anatomy:  Linnaeus,  his  con- 
temporary, was  affirming,  in  his  beautiful  science, 
that  "  Nature  is  always  like  herself:"  and,  lastly, 
the  nobility  of  method,  the  largest  application  of 


SweDenborg ;  or,  tbe  /iR^stic  109 

principles,  had  been  exhibited  by  Leibnitz  and 
Christian  Wolff,  in  cosmology  ;  whilst  Locke  and 
Grotius  had  drawn  the  moral  argument.  What  was 
left  for  a  genius  of  the  largest  calibre,  but  to  go 
over  their  ground,  and  verify  and  unite?  It  is 
easy  to  see,  in  these  minds,  the  original  of  Sweden- 
borg's  studies,  and  the  suggestion  of  his  problems. 
He  had  a  capacity  to  entertain  and  vivify  these 
volumes  of  thought.  Yet  the  proximity  of  these 
geniuses,  one  or  other  of  whom  had  introduced  all 
his  leading  ideas,  makes  Swedenborg  another  ex- 
ample of  the  difficulty,  even  in  a  highly  fertile 
genius,  of  proving  originality,  the  first  birth  and 
annunciation  of  one  of  the  laws  of  nature. 

He  named  his  favorite  views,  the  doctrine  of 
Forms,  the  doctrine  of  Series  and  Degrees,  the 
doctrine  of  Influx,  the  doctrine  of  Correspondence. 
His  statement  of  these  doctrines  deserves  to  be 
studied  in  his  books.  Not  every  man  can  read 
them,  but  they  will  reward  him  who  can.  His 
theologic  works  are  valuable  to  illustrate  these. 
His  writings  would  be  a  sufficient  library  to  a 
lonely  and  athletic  student ;  and  the  "  Economy 
of  the  Animal  Kingdom  "  is  one  of  those  books 
which,  by  the  sustained  dignity  of  thinking,  is  an 
honor  to  the  human  race.  He  had  studied  spars 
and   metals   to  some   purpose.       His  varied  and 


no  IRcpresentatfve  ^en 

solid  knowledge  makes  his  style  lustrous  with 
points  and  shooting  spicula  of  thought,  and  re- 
sembling one  of  those  winter  mornings  when  the 
air  sparkles  with  crystals.  The  grandeur  of  the 
topics  makes  the  grandeur  of  the  style.  He  was 
apt  for  cosmology,  because  of  that  native  percep- 
tion of  identity  which  made  mere  size  of  no 
account  to  him.  In  the  atom  of  magnetic  iron, 
he  saw  the  quality  which  would  generate  the  spiral 
motion  of  sun  and  planet. 

The  thoughts  in  which  he  lived  were,  the  uni- 
versality of  each  law  in  nature  ;  the  Platonic  doc- 
trine of  the  scale  or  degrees;  the  version  or  con- 
version of  each  into  other,  and  so  the  correspond- 
ence of  all  the  parts  ;  the  fine  secret  that  little 
explains  large,  and  large,  little  ;  the  centrality  of 
man  in  nature,  and  the  connection  that  subsists 
throughout  all  things  :  he  saw  that  the  human 
body  was  strictly  universal,  or  an  instrument 
through  which  the  soul  feeds  and  is  fed  by  the 
whole  of  matter  :  so  that  he  held,  in  exact  antago- 
nism to  the  skeptics,  that,  *'the  wiser  a  man  is, 
the  more  will  he  be  a  worshipper  of  the  Deity." 
In  short,  he  was  a  believer  in  the  Identity-philoso- 
phy, which  he  held  not  idly,  as  the  dreamers  of 
Berlin  or  Boston,  but  which  he  experimented 
with   and  stablished  through  years  of  labor,  with 


SwcJJcnborg ;  or,  tbe  flbi^stfc  m 

the  heart  and  strength  of  the  rudest  Viking  that 
his  rough  Sweden  ever  sent  to  battle. 

This  theory  dates  from  the  oldest  philosophers, 
and  derives  perhaps  its  best  illustration  from  the 
newest.  It  is  this:  that  nature  iterates  her  means 
perpetually  on  successive  planes.  In  the  old 
aphorism,  nature  is  always  self-similar.  In  the 
plant,  the  eye  or  germinative  point  opens  to  a 
leaf,  then  to  another  leaf,  with  a  power  of  trans- 
forming the  leaf  into  radicle,  stamen,  pistil,  petal, 
bract,  sepal,  or  seed.  The  whole  art  of  the  plant 
is  still  to  repeat  leaf  on  leaf  without  end,  the  more 
or  less  of  heat,  light,  moisture,  and  food,  deter- 
mining the  form  it  shall  assume.  In  the  animal, 
nature  makes  a  vertebra,  or  a  spine  of  vertebrae, 
and  helps  herself  still  by  a  new  spine,  with  a  lim- 
ited power  of  modifying  its  form, — spine  on  spine, 
to  the  end  of  the  world.  A  poetic  anatomist,  in 
our  own  day,  teaches  that  a  snake,  being  a  hori- 
zontal line,  and  man,  being  an  erect  line,  consti- 
tute a  right  angle  ;  and,  between  the  lines  of  this 
mystical  quadrant,  all  animated  beings  find  their 
place ;  and  he  assumes  the  hair-worm,  the  span- 
worm,  or  the  snake,  as  the  type  or  prediction  of 
the  spine.  Manifestly,  at  the  end  of  the  spine, 
nature  puts  out  smaller  spines,  as  arms;  at  the  end 
of  the  arms,  new  spines,  as  hands ;  at  the  other 


112  'Representative  flben 

,  end,  she  repeats  the  process,  as  legs  and  feet.  At 
the  top  of  the  column,  she  puts  out  anotherspine, 
which  doubles  or  loops  itself  over,  as  a  span- 
worm,  into  a  ball,  and  forms  the  skull,  with  ex- 
tremities again  ;  the  hands  being  now  the  upper 
jaw,  the  feet  the  lower  jaw,  the  fingers  and  toes 
being  represented  this  time  by  upper  and  lower 
teeth.  This  new  spine  is  destined  to  high  uses. 
It  is  a  new  man  on  the  shoulders  of  the  last.  It 
can  almost  shed  its  trunk,  and  manage  to  live 
alone,  according  to  the  Platonic  idea  in  the  Tim- 
seus.  Within  it,  on  a  higher  plane,  all  that  was 
done  in  the  trunk  repeats  itself.  Nature  recites 
her  lesson  once  more  in  a  higher  mood.  The 
mind  is  a  finer  body,  and  resumes  its  functions  of 
feeding,  digesting,  absorbing,  excluding,  and  gen- 
erating, in  a  new  and  ethereal  element.  Here, 
in  the  brain,  is  all  the  process  of  alimentation  re- 
peated, in  the  acquiring,  comparing,  digesting, 
and  assimilating  of  experience.  Here  again  is  the 
mystery  of  generation  repeated.  In  the  brain  are 
male  and  female  faculties ;  here  is  marriage,  here 
is  fruit.  And  there  is  no  limit  to  this  ascending 
scale,  but  series  on  series.  Every  thing,  at  the 
end  of  one  use,  is  taken  up  into  the  next,  each 
series  punctually  repeating  every  organ  and  pro- 
cess of  the  last.     We  are  adapted  to  infinity.    We 


SweOenbors;  or,  tbc  IVb^stic  113 

are  hard  to  please,  and  love  nothing  which  ends ; 
and  in  nature  is  no  end ;  but  every  thing,  at  the 
end  of  one  use,  is  lifted  into  a  superior,  and  the 
ascent  of  these  things  climbs  into  daemonic  and 
celestial  natures.  Creative  force,  like  a  musical 
composer,  goes  on  unweariedly  repeating  a  simple  j 
air  or  theme,  now  high,  now  low,  in  solo,  in, 
chorus,  ten  thousand  times  reverberated,  till  it  fills 
earth  and  heaven  with  the  chant. 

Gravitation,  as  explained  by  Newton,  is  good, 
but  grander,  when  we  find  chemistry  only  an  ex- 
tension of  the  law  of  masses  into  particles,  and 
that  the  atomic  theory  shows  the  action  of  chem- 
istry to  be  mechanical  also.  Metaphysics  shows 
us  a  sort  of  gravitation,  operative  also  in  the  men- 
tal phenomena  ;  and  the  terrible  tabulation  of  the 
French  statists  brings  every  piece  of  whim  and 
humor  to  be  reducible  also  to  exact  numerical 
ratios.  If  one  man  in  twenty  thousand,  or  in 
thirty  thousand,  eats  shoes,  or  marries  his  grand- 
mother, then,  in  every  twenty  thousand,  or  thirty 
thousand,  is  found  one  man  who  eats  shoes,  or 
marries  his  grandmother.  What  we  call  gravita- 
tion, and  fancy  ultimate,  is  one  fork  of  a  mightier 
stream,  for  which  we  have  yet  no  name.  Astron- 
omy is  excellent ;  but  it  must  come  up  into  life  to 
have  its  full  value,  and  not  remain  there  in  globes 


"4  •Representative  JXscn 

and  spaces.  The  globule  of  blood  gyrates  around 
its  own  axis  in  the  human  veins,  as  the  planet  in 
the  sky  ;  and  the  circles  of  intellect  relate  to  those 
of  the  heavens.  Each  law  of  nature  has  the  like 
universality ;  eating,  sleep  or  hybernation,  rota- 
tion, generation,  metamorphosis,  vortical  motion, 
which  is  seen  in  eggs  as  in  planets.  These  grand 
rhymes  or  returns  in  nature, — the  dear,  best-known 
face  startling  us  at  every  turn,  under  a  mask  so 
unexpected  that  we  think  it  the  face  of  a  stranger, 
and,  carrying  up  the  semblance  into  divine  forms, 
— delighted  the  prophetic  eye  of  Swedenborg; 
and  he  must  be  reckoned  a  leader  in  that  revolu- 
tion, which,  by  giving  to  science  an  idea,  has 
given  to  an  aimless  accumulation  of  experiments, 
guidance  and  form,  and  a  beating  heart. 

I  own,  with  some  regret,  that  his  printed  works 
amount  to  about  fifty  stout  octaves,  his  scientific 
works  being  about  half  of  the  whole  number ;  and 
it  appears  that  a  mass  of  manuscript  still  unedited 
remains  in  the  royal  library  at  Stockholm.  The 
scientific  works  have  just  now  been  translated  into 
English,  in  an  excellent  edition. 

Swedenborg  printed  these  scientific  books  in  the 
ten  years  from  1734  to  1744,  and  they  remained 
from  that  time  neglected :  and  now,  after  their 
century  is  complete,  he  has  at  last  found  a  pupil 


Swe^enborfl;  or,  tbe  ^^etic  115 

in  Mr.  Wilkinson,  in  London,  a  philosophic  critic, 
with  a  coequal  vigor  of  understanding  and  imagi- 
nation comparable  only  to  Lord  Bacon's,  who 
has  produced  his  master's  buried  books  to  the  day, 
and  transferred  them,  with  every  advantage,  from 
their  forgotten  Latin  into  English,  to  go  round  the 
world  in  our  commercial  and  conquering  tongue. 
This  startling  reappearance  of  Swedenborg,  after 
a  hundred  years,  in  his  pupil,  is  not  the  least  re- 
markable fact  in  his  history.  Aided,  it  is  said,  by 
the  munificence  of  Mr.  Clissold,  and  also  by  his 
literary  skill,  this  piece  of  poetic  justice  is  done. 
The  admirable  preliminary  discourses  with  which 
Mr.  Wilkinson  has  enriched  these  volumes,  throw 
all  the  contemporary  philosophy  of  England  into 
shade,  and  leave  me  nothing  to  say  on  their  proper 
grounds. 

The  * 'Animal  Kingdom  "  is  a  book  of  wonder- 
ful merits.  It  was  written  with  the  highest  end, — 
to  put  science  and  the  soul,  long  estranged  from 
each  other,  at  one  again.  It  was  an  anatomist's 
account  of  the  human  body,  in  the  highest  style 
of  poetry.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  bold  and 
brilliant  treatment  of  a  subject  usually  so  dry  and 
repulsive.  He  saw  nature  **  wreathing  through 
an  everlasting  spiral,  with  wheels  that  never  dry, 
on  axles  that  never  creak,"  and  sometimes  sought 


ii6  TRepresentativc  /Ben 

*'  to  uncover  those  secret  recesses  where  nature  is 
sitting  at  the  fires  in  the  depths  of  her  labora- 
tory ;  ' '  whilst  the  picture  comes  recommended  by 
the  hard  fidelity  with  which  it  is  based  on  practi- 
cal anatomy.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  sublime 
genius  decides,  peremptorily  for  the  analytic, 
against  the  synthetic  method ;  and,  in  a  book 
whose  genius  is  a  daring  poetic  synthesis,  claims 
to  confine  himself  to  a  rigid  experience. 

He  knows,  if  he  only,  the  flowing  of  nature, 
and  how  wise  was  that  old  answer  of  Amasis  to 
him  who  bade  him  drink  up  the  sea, — "  Yes, 
willingly,  if  you  will  stop  the  rivers  that  flow 
in."  Few  knew  as  much  about  nature  and  her 
subtle  manners,  or  expressed  more  subtly  her 
goings.  He  thought  as  large  a  demand  is  made 
on  our  faith  by  nature,  as  by  miracles.  *'  He 
noted  that  in  her  proceeding  from  first  principles 
through  her  several  subordinations,  there  was  no 
state  through  which  she  did  not  pass,  as  if  her 
path  lay  through  all  things."  *'  For  as  often  as 
she  betakes  herself  upward  from  visible  phenom- 
ena, or,  in  other  words,  withdraws  herself  inward, 
she  instantly,  as  it  were,  disappears,  while  no  one 
knows  what  has  become  of  her,  or  whither  she 
is  gone  :  so  that  it  is  necessary  to  take  science  as 
a  guide  in  pursuing  her  steps." 


Swe^enborg;  or,  tbe  ^i^stic  117 

The  pursuing  the  inquiry  under  the  light  of  an 
end  or  final  cause,  gives  wonderful  animation,  a 
sort  of  personality  to  the  whole  writing.  This 
book  announces  his  favorite  dogmas.  The 
ancient  doctrine  of  Hippocrates,  that  the  brain  is 
a  gland  ;  and  of  Leucippus,  that  the  atom  may 
be  known  by  the  mass;  or,  in  Plato,  the  macro- 
cosm by  the  microcosm  ;  and,  in  the  verses  of 
Lucretius, — 

Ossa  videlicet  e  pauxillis  atque  minutis 
Ossibus  sic  et  de  pauxillis  atque  minutis 
Visceribus  viscus  gigni,  sanguenque  creari 
Sanguinis  inter  se  multis  coeuntibus  guttis; 
Ex  aurique  putat  micis  consistere  posse 
Aurum,  et  de  terris  terram  concrescere  parvis ; 
Ignibus  ex  igneis,  humorem  humoribus  esse. 

Lib.  I.  835. 

*'  The  principle  of  all  things  entrails  made 

Of  smallest  entrails  ;  bone,  of  smallest  bone ; 

Blood,  of  small  sanguine  drops  reduced  to  one ; 
'  Gold,  of  small  grains ;  earth,  of  small  sands  compacted ; 

Small  drops  to  water,  sparks  to  fire  contracted:  " 

and  which  Malpighi  had  summed  in  his  maxim, 
that  '*  nature  exists  entirely  in  leasts," — is  a  favor- 
ite thought  of  Swedenborg.  "It  is  a  constant 
law  of  the  organic  body,  that  large,  compound,  or 
visible  forms  exist  and  subsist  from  smaller,  sim- 
pler, and  ultimately  from  invisible  forms,  which 


ii8  •Representative  Itscn 

act  similarly  to  the  larger  ones,  but  more  perfectly 
and  more  universally,  and  the  least  forms  so  per- 
fectly and  universally,  as  to  involve  an  idea  repre- 
sentative of  their  entire  universe."  The  unities 
of  each  organ  are  so  many  little  organs,  homoge- 
neous with  their  compound:  the  unities  of  the 
tongue  are  little  tongues ;  those  of  the  stomach, 
little  stomachs ;  those  of  the  heart  are  little  hearts. 
This  fruitful  idea  furnishes  a  key  to  every  secret. 
What  was  too  small  for  the  eye  to  detect  was  read 
by  the  aggregates ;  what  was  too  large,  by  the 
units.  There  is  no  end  to  his  application  of  the 
thought.  *'  Hunger  is  an  aggregate  of  very  many 
little  hungers,  or  losses  of  blood  by  the  little  veins 
all  over  the  body."  It  is  the  key  to  his  theology, 
also.  ''Man  is  a  kind  of  very  minute  heaven, 
corresponding  to  the  world  of  spirits  and  to 
heaven.  Every  particular  idea  of  man,  and  every 
affection,  yea,  every  smallest  part  of  his  affection, 
is  an  image  and  effigy  of  him.  A  spirit  may  be 
known  from  only  a  single  thought.  God  is  the 
grand  man." 

The  hardihood  and  thoroughness  of  his  study 
of  nature  required  a  theory  of  forms,  also. 
''Forms  ascend  in  order  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest.  The  lowest  form  is  angular,  or  the  ter- 
restrial and  corporeal.      The  second  and  next 


SweOenborg;  or,  tbe /IR^stlc  119 

higher  form  is* the  circular,  which  is  also  called 
the  perpetual-angular,  because  the  circumference 
of  a  circle  is  a  perpetual  angle.  The  form  above 
this  is  the  spiral,  parent  and  measure  of  circular 
forms  :  its  diameters  are  not  rectilinear,  but  vari- 
ously circular,  and  have  a  spherical  surface  for 
centre  ;  therefore  it  is  called  the  perpetual-circu- 
lar. The  form  above  this  is  the  vortical,  or  per- 
petual spiral :  next,  the  perpetual-vortical,  or  ce- 
lestial :  last,  the  perpetual-celestial,  or  spiritual." 

Was  it  strange  that  a  genius  so  bold  should 
take  the  last  step,  also, — conceive  that  he  might 
attain  the  science  of  all  sciences,  to  unlock  the 
meaning  of  the  world  ?  In  the  first  volume  of 
the  **  Animal  Kingdom,"  he  broaches  the  subject, 
in  a  remarkable  note. — 

"  In  our  doctrine  of  Representations  and 
Correspondences,  we  shall  treat  of  both  these 
symbolical  and  typical  resemblances,  and  of  the 
astonishing  things  which  occur,  I  will  not  say,  in 
the  living  body  only,  but  throughout  nature,  and 
which  correspond  so  entirely  to  supreme  and 
spiritual  things,  that  one  would  swear  that  the 
physical  world  was  purely  symbolical  of  the  spir- 
itual world ;  insomuch,  that  if  we  choose  to  ex- 
press any  natural  truth  in  physical  and  definite 
vocal  terms,  and  to  convert  these  terms  only  into 


I20  'Representative  /Ren 

the  corresponding  and  spiritual  terms,  we  shall  by 
this  means  elicit  a  spiritual  truth,  or  theological 
dogma,  in  place  of  the  physical  truth  or  precept : 
although  no  mortal  would  have  predicted  that 
any  thing  of  the  kind  could  possibly  arise  by 
bare  literal  transposition;  inasmuch  as  the  one 
precept,  considered  separately  from  the  other, 
appears  to  have  absolutely  no  relation  to  it.  I 
intend,  hereafter,  to  communicate  a  number  of 
examples  of  such  correspondences,  together  with 
a  vocabulary  containing  the  terms  of  spiritual 
things,  as  well  as  of  the  physical  things  for  which 
they  are  to  be  substitnted.  This  symbolism  per- 
vades the  living  body." 

The  fact,  thus  explicitly  stated,  is  implied  in 
all  poetry,  in  allegory,  in  fable,  in  the  use  of 
emblems,  and  in  the  structure  of  language.  Plato 
"knew  of  it,  as  is  evident  from  his  twice  bisected 
line,  in  the  sixth  book  of  the  Republic.  Lord 
Bacon  had  found  that  truth  and  nature  differed 
only  as  seal  and  print ;  and  he  instanced  some 
physical  proportions,  with  their  translation  into  a 
moral  and  political  sense.  Behmen,  and  all  mys- 
tics, imply  this  law,  in  their  dark  riddle-writing. 
The  poets,  in  as  far  as  they  are  poets,  use  it ;  but 
it  is  known  to  them  only,  as  the  magnet  was 
known  for  ages,  as  a  toy.     Swedenborg  first  put 


SwcDcnborg;  or,  tbe  ^^stic  121 

the  fact  into  a  detached  and  scientific  statement, 
because  it  was  habitually  present  to  him,  and 
never  not  seen.  It  was  involved,  as  we  explained 
already,  in  the  doctrine  of  identity  and  iteration, 
because  the  mental  series  exactly  tallies  with  the 
material  series.  It  required  an  insight  that  could 
rank  things  in  order  and  series ;  or,  rather,  it 
required  such  rightness  of  position,  that  the  poles 
of  the  eye  should  coincide  with  the  axis  of  the 
world.  The  earth  has  fed  its  mankind  through 
five  or  six  millenniums,  and  they  had  sciences, 
religions,  philosophies;  and  yet  had  failed  to  see 
the  correspondence  of  meaning  between  every 
part  and  every  other  part.  And,  down  to  this 
hour,  literature  has  no  book  in  which  the  symbol- 
ism of  things  is  scientifically  opened.  One  would 
say,  that,  as  soon  as  men  had  the  first  hint  that 
every  sensible  object, — animal,  rock,  river,  air, — 
nay,  space  and  time,  subsists  not  for  itself,  nor 
finally  to  a  material  end,  but  as  a  picture-language, 
to  tell  another  story  of  beings  and  duties,  other 
science  would  be  put  by,  and  a  science  of  such 
grand  presage  would  absorb  all  faculties :  that 
each  man  would  ask  of  all  objects,  what  they 
mean  :  Why  does  the  horizon  hold  me  fast,  with 
my  joy  and  grief,  in  this  centre?  Why  hear  I 
the  same  sense   from  countless  differing  voices. 


122  "Representative  ^en 

and  read  one  never  quite  expressed  fact  in  endless 
picture-language  ?  Yet,  whether  it  be,  that  these 
things  will  not  be  intellectually  learned,  or,  that 
many  centuries  must  elaborate  and  compose  so 
rare  and  opulent  a  soul, — there  is  no  comet,  rock- 
stratum,  fossil,  fish,  quadruped,  spider,  or  fungus, 
that,  for  itself,  does  not  interest  more  scholars 
and  classifiers,  than  the  meaning  and  upshot  of 
the  frame  of  things. 

But  Swedenborg  was  not  content  with  the 
culinary  use  of  the  world.  In  his  fifty-fourth 
year,  these  thoughts  held  him  fast,  and  his  pro- 
found mind  admitted  the  perilous  opinion,  too 
frequent  in  religious  history,  that  he  was  an 
abnormal  person,  to  whom  was  granted  the  privi- 
lege of  conversing  with  angels  and  spirits ;  and 
this  ecstasy  connected  itself  with  just  this  office 
of  explaining  the  moral  import  of  the  sensible 
world.  To  a  right  perception,  at  once  broad  and 
minute,  of  the  order  of  nature,  he  added  the 
comprehension  of  the  moral  laws  in  their  widest 
social  aspects;  but  whatever  he  saw,  through 
some  excessive  determination  to  form,  in  his  con- 
stitution, he  saw  not  abstractly,  but  in  pictures, 
heard  it  in  dialogues,  constructed  it  in  events. 
When  he  attempted  to  announce  the  law  most 
sanely,  he  was  forced  to  couch  it  in  parable. 


SweDenbors ;  or,  tbc  flbi^stic  123 

Modern  psychology  offers  no  similar  example 
of  a  deranged  balance.  The  principal  powers 
continued  to  maintain  a  healthy  action  ;  and,  to 
a  reader  who  can  make  due  allowance  in  the 
report  for  the  reporter's  peculiarities,  the  results 
are  still  instructive,  and  a  more  striking  testimony 
to  the  sublime  laws  he  announced,  than  any  that 
balanced  dulness  could  afford.  He  attempts  to 
give  some  account  of  the  modus  of  the  new 
state,  affirming  that  *'his  presence  in  the  spiritual 
world  is  attended  with  a  certain  separation,  but 
only  as  to  the  intellectual  part  of  his  mind,  not 
as  to  the  will  part;  "  and  he  affirms  that  **  he 
sees,  with  the  internal  sight,  the  things  that  are 
in  another  life,  more  clearly  than  he  sees  the 
things  which  are  here  in  the  world." 

Having  adopted  the  belief  that  certain  books 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  were  exact  alle- 
gories, or  written  in  the  angelic  and  ecstatic  mode, 
he  employed  his  remaining  years  in  extricating 
from  the  literal,  the  universal  sense.  He  had  bor- 
rowed from  Plato  the  fine  fable  of  "  a  most  ancient 
people,  men  better  than  we,  and  dwelling  nigher 
to  the  gods;"  and  Swedenborg  added,  that  they 
used  the  earth  symbolically ;  that  these,  when  they 
saw  terrestrial  objects,  did  not  think  at  all  about 
them,  but  only  about  those  which  they  signified. 


124  •Representative  /Ren 

The  correspondence  between  thoughts  and  things 
henceforward  occupied  him.  *'  The  very  organic 
form  resembles  the  end  inscribed  on  it."  A  man 
is  in  general,  and  in  particular,  an  organized  justice 
or  injustice,  selfishness  or  gratitude.  And  the 
cause  of  this  harmony  he  assigned  in  the  Arcana: 
"  The  reason  why  all  and  single  things,  in  the 
heavens  and  on  earth,  are  representative,  is  be- 
cause they  exist  from  an  influx  of  the  Lord,  through 
heaven."  This  design  of  exhibiting  such  corre- 
spondences, which,  if  adequately  executed,  would 
be  the  poem  of  the  world,  in  which  all  history  and 
science  would  play  an  essential  part,  was  narrowed 
and  defeated  by  the  exclusively  theologic'direction 
which  his  inquiries  took.  His  perception  of  nature 
is  not  human  and  universal,  but  is  mystical  and 
Hebraic.  He  fastens  each  natural  object  to  a 
theologic  notion: — a  horse  signifies  carnal  under- 
standing; a  tree,  perception;  the  moon,  faith;  a 
cat  means  this;  an  ostrich,  that;  an  artichoke, 
this  other;  and  poorly  tethers  every  symbol  to  a 
several  ecclesiastic  sense.  The  slippery  Proteus  is 
not  so  easily  caught.  In  nature,  each  individual 
symbol  plays  innumerable  parts,  as  each  particle 
of  matter  circulates  in  turn  through  every  system. 
The  central  identity  enables  any  one  symbol  to 
express  successively  all  the  qualities  and  shades  of 


SwcDenborQ ;  or,  tbe  IXs^etic  125 

real  being.  In  the  transmission  of  the  heavenly 
waters,  every  hose  fits  every  hydrant.  Nature 
avenges  herself  speedily  on  the  hard  pedantry  that 
would  chain  her  waves.  She  is  no  literalist.  Every 
thing  must  be  taken  genially,  and  we  must  be  at 
the  top  of  our  condition,  to  understand  any  thing 
rightly. 

His  theological  bias  thus  fatally  narrowed  his 
interpretation  of  nature,  and  the  dictionary  of 
symbols  is  yet  to  be  written.  But  the  interpreter, 
whom  mankind  must  still  expect,  will  find  no 
predecessor  who  has  approached  so  near  to  the 
true  problem. 

Swedenborg  styles  himself,  in  the  title-page  of 
his  books,  ''Servant  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;" 
and  by  force  of  intellect,  and  in  effect,  he  is  the 
last  Father  in  the  Church,  and  is  not  likely  to  have 
a  successor.  No  wonder  that  his  depth  of  ethical 
wisdom  should  give  him  influence  as  a  teacher. 
To  the  withered  traditional  church  yielding  dry 
catechisms,  he  let  in  nature  again,  and  the  worship- 
per, escaping  from  the  vestry  of  verbs  and  texts, 
is  surprised  to  find  himself  a  party  to  the  whole 
of  his  religion.  His  religion  thinks  for  him,  and 
is  of  universal  application.  He  turns  it  on  every 
side ;  it  fits  every  part  of  life,  interprets  and  dig- 
nifies every  circumstance.  Instead  of  a  religion 
9 


126  •Representative  ffben 

which  visited  him  diplomatically  three  or  four 
times, — ;when  he  was  bom,  when  he  married,  when 
he  fell  sick,  and  when  he  died,  and  for  the  rest 
never  interfered  with  him, — here  was  a  teaching 
which  accompanied  him  all  day,  accompanied  him 
even  into  sleep  and  dreams;  into  his  thinking,  and 
showed  him  through  what  a  long  ancestry  his 
thoughts  descend;  into  society,  and  showed  by 
what  affinities  he  was  girt  to  his  equals  and  his 
counterparts;  into  natural  objects,  and  showed 
their  origin  and  meaning,  what  are  friendly,  and 
what  are  hurtful;  and  opened  the  future  world,  by 
indicating  the  continuity  of  the  same  laws.  His 
disciples  allege  that  their  intellect  is  invigorated 
by  the  study  of  his  books. 

There  is  no  such  problem  for  criticism  as  his 
theological  writings,  their  merits  are  so  command- 
ing ;  yet  such  grave  deductions  must  be  made. 
Their  immense  and  sandy  diffuseness  is  like  the 
prairie,  or  the  desert,  and  their  incongmities  are 
like  the  last  de]i ration.  He  is  superfluously  ex- 
planatory, and  his  feeling  of  the  ignorance  of  men, 
strangely  exaggerated.  Men  take  truths  of  this 
nature  very  fast.  Yet  he  abounds  in  assertions  : 
he  is  a  rich  discoverer,  and  of  things  which  most 
import  us  to  know.  His  thought  dwells  inessential 
resemblances,  like  the  resemblance  of  a  house  to 


SvveDenborg;  or,  tbe  ^^atlc  127 

the  man  who  built  it.  He  saw  things  in  their  law, 
in  likeness  of  function,  not  of  structure.  There 
is  an  invariable  method  and  order  in  his  delivery 
of  his  truth,  the  habitual  proceeding  of  the  mind 
from  inmost  to  outmost.  What  earnestness  and 
weightiness, — his  eye  never  roving,  without  one 
swell  of  vanity,  or  one  look  to  self,  in  any  com- 
mon form  of  literary  pride  !  a  theoretic  or  specu- 
lative man,  but  whom  no  practical  man  in  the  uni- 
verse could  affect  to  scorn.  Plato  isagownsman  : 
his  garment,  though  of  purple,  and  almost  sky- 
woven,  is  an  academic  robe,  and  hinders  action 
with  its  voluminous  folds.  But  this  mystic  is 
awful  to  Caesar.     Lycurgus  himself  would  bow. 

The  moral  insight  of  Swedenborg,  the  correc- 
tion of  popular  errors,  the  announcement  of  ethi- 
cal laws,  take  him  out  of  comparison  with  any 
other  modern  writer,  and  entitle  him  to  a  place, 
vacant  for  some  ages,  among  the  lawgivers  of  man- 
kind. That  slow  but  commanding  influence 
which  he  has  acquired,  like  that  of  other  religious 
geniuses,  must  be  excessive  also,  and  have  its 
tides,  before  it  subsides  into  a  permanent  amount. 
Of  course,  what  is  real  and  universal  cannot  be 
confined  to  the  circle  of  those  who  sympathize 
strictly  with  his  genius,  but  will  pass  forth  into 
the  common  stock  of  wise  and  just  thinking.  The 


128  IRcprcsentative  /Ben 

world  has  a  sure  chemistry,  by  which  it  attracts 
what  is  excellent  in  its  children,  and  lets  fall  the 
infirmities  and  limitations  of  the  grandest  mind. 
That  metempsychosis  which  is  familiar  in  the 
old  mythology  of  the  Greeks,  collected  in  Ovid, 
and  in  the  Indian  Transmigration,  and  is  there 
objective^  or  really  takes  place  in  bodies  by  alien 
will, — in  Swedenborg's  mind,  has  a  more  philo- 
sophic character.  It  is  subjective,  or  depends 
entirely  upon  the  thought  of  the  person.  All 
things  in  the  universe  arrange  themselves  to  each 
person  anew,  according  to  his  ruling  love.  Man 
is  such  as  his  affection  and  thought  are.  Man  is 
man  by  virtue  of  willing,  not  by  virtue  of  know- 
ing and  understanding.  As  he  is,  so  he  sees.  The 
marriages  of  the  world  are  broken  up.  Interiors 
associate  all  in  the  spiritual  world.  Whatever 
the  angels  looked  upon  was  to  them  celestial. 
Each  Satan  appears  to  himself  a  man ;  to  those  as 
bad  as  he,  a  comely  man  ;  to  the  purified,  a  heap 
of  carrion.  Nothing  can  resist  states:  every  thing 
gravitates:  like  will  to  like:  what  we  call  poetic 
justice  takes  effect  on  the  spot.  We  have  come 
into  a  world  which  is  a  living  poem.  Every  thing 
is  as  I  am.  Bird  and  beast  is  not  bird  and  beast, 
but  emanation  and  effluvia  of  the  minds  and  wills 
of  men  there  present.     Every  one  makes  his  own 


SweOenborg ;  or,  tbe  /Risstic  129 

house  and  state.  The  ghosts  are  tormented  with 
the  fear  of  death,  and  cannot  remember  that  they 
have  died.  They  who  are  in  evil  and  falsehood 
are  afraid  of  all  others.  Such  as  have  deprived 
themselves  of  charity,  wander  and  flee :  the  soci- 
eties which  they  approach  discover  their  quality, 
and  drive  them  away.  The  covetous  seem  to  them- 
selves to  be  abiding  in  cells  where  their  money 
is  deposited,  and  these  to  be  infested  with 
mice.  They  who  place  merit  in  good  works  seem 
to  themselves  to  cut  wood.  ^'I  asked  such,  if 
they  were  not  wearied?  They  replied,  that 
they  have  not  yet  done  work  enough  to  merit 
heaven." 

He  delivers  golden  sayings,  which  express  with 
singular  beauty  the  ethical  laws;  as  when  he 
uttered  that  famed  sentence,  that,  ''in  heaven  the 
angels  are  advancing  continually  to  the  spring- 
time of  their  youth,  so  that  the  oldest  angel  appears 
the  youngest:"  ''The  more  angels,  the  more 
room:  "  "  The  perfection  of  man  is  the  love  of 
use:"  "Man,  in  his  perfect  form,  is  heaven:" 
"What  is  from  Him,  is  Him:"  "  Ends  always 
ascend  as  nature  descends :  * '  And  the  truly  poetic 
account  of  the  writing  in  the  inmost  heaven, 
which,  as  it  consists  of  inflexions  according  to  the 
form  of  heaven,  can  be  read  without  instruction. 


I30  "Kepresentative  /Ren 

He  almost  justifies  his  claim  to  preternatural  vision, 
by  strange  insights  of  the  structure  of  the  human 
body  and  mind.  *'It  is  never  permitted  to  any 
one,  in  heaven,  to  stand  behind  another  and  look 
at  the  back  of  his  head :  for  then  the  influx  which 
is  from  the  Lord  is  disturbed."  The  angels,  from 
the  sound  of  the  voice,  know  a  man's  love ;  from 
the  articulation  of  the  sound,  his  wisdom;  and 
from  the  sense  of  the  words,  his  science. 

In  the  **  Conjugal  Love,"  he  has  unfolded  the 
science  of  marriage.  Of  this  book,  one  would 
say,  that,  with  the  highest  elements,  it  has,  failed 
of  success.  It  came  near  to  be  the  Hymn  of 
Love,  which  Plato  attempted  in  the  *' Banquet;  " 
the  love,  which,  Dante  says,  Casella  sang  among 
the  angels  in  Paradise ;  and  which,  as  rightly 
celebrated,  in  its  genesis,  fruition,  and  effect, 
might  well  entrance  the  souls,  as  it  would  lay 
open  the  genesis  of  all  institutions,  customs,  and 
manners.  The  book  had  been  grand,  if  the  He- 
braism had  been  omitted,  and  the  law  stated  with- 
out Gothicism,  as  ethics,  and  with  that  scope  for 
ascension  of  state  which  the  nature  of  things 
requires.  It  is  a  fine  Platonic  development  of  the 
science  of  marriage  ;  teaching  that  sex  is  univer- 
sal, and  not  local ;  virility  in  the  male  qualifying 
every  organ,  act,  and  thought ;  and  the  feminine 


Swc^enbors;  or,  tbe  jfflb^stic  131 

in  woman.  Therefore,  in  the  real  or  spiritual 
world,  the  puptial  union  is  not  momentary,  but 
incessant  and  total ;  and  chastity  not  a  local,  but 
a  universal  virtue  ;  unchastity  being  discovered  as 
much  in  the  trading,  or  planting,  or  speaking,  or 
philosophizing,  as  in  generation  ;  and  that,  though 
the  virgins  he  saw  in  heaven  were  beautiful,  the 
wives  were  incomparably  more  beautiful,  and 
went  on  increasing  in  beauty  evermore. 

Yet  Swedenborg,  after  his  mode,  pinned  his 
theory  to  a  temporary  form.  He  exaggerates  the 
circumstance  of  marriage  ;  and,  though  he  finds 
false  marriages  on  the  earth,  fancies  a  wiser  choice  in 
heaven.  But  of  progressive  souls,  all  loves  and 
friendships  are  momentary.  Do  you  love  me  ? 
means.  Do  you  see  the  same  truth  ?  If  you  do, 
we  are  happy  with  the  same  happiness ;  but  pres- 
ently one  of  us  passes  into  the  perception  of  new 
truth  ; — we  are  divorced,  and  no  tension  in  nature 
can  hold  us  to  each  other.  I  know  how  delicious 
is  this  cup  of  love, — I  existing  for  you,  you  exist- 
ing for  me;  but  it  is  a  child's  clinging  to  his 
toy ;  an  attempt  to  eternize  the  fireside  and  nup- 
tial chamber ;  to  keep  the  picture-alphabet  through 
which  our  first  lessons  are  prettily  conveyed. 
The  Eden  of  God  is  bare  and  grand :  like  the 
out-door  landscape,  remembered  from  the  evening 


132  IReprcsentative  ^en 

fireside,  it  seems  cold  and  desolate,  whilst  you 
cower  over  the  coals;  but,  once  abroad  again,  we 
pity  those  who  can  forego  the  magnificence  of 
nature,  for  candle-light  and  cards.  Perhaps  the 
true  subject  of  the  '*  Conjugal  Love  "  is  conver- 
sation, whose  laws  are  profoundly  eliminated.  It 
is  false,  if  literally  applied  to  marriage.  For  God 
is  the  bride  or  bridegroom  of  the  soul.  Heaven 
is  not  the  pairing  of  two,  but  the  communion  of 
all  souls.  We  meet,  and  dwell  an  instant  under 
the  temple  of  one  thought,  and  part  as  though  we 
parted  not,  to  join  another  thought  in  other  fel- 
lowships of  joy.  So  far  from  there  being  any 
thing  divine  in  the  low  and  proprietary  sense  of 
Do  you  love  me  ?  it  is  only  when  you  leave  and 
lose  me,  by  casting  yourself  on  a  sentiment  which 
is  higher  than  both  of  us,  that  I  draw  near,  and 
find  myself  at  your  side ;  and  I  am  repelled,  if 
you  fix  your  eye  on  me,  and  demand  love.  In 
fact,'  in  the  spiritual  world,  we  change  sexes 
every  moment.  You  love  the  worth  in  me  ;  then 
I  am  your  husband :  but  it  is  not  me,  but  the 
worth,  that  fixes  the  love ;  and  that  worth  is  a 
drop  of  the  ocean  of  worth  that  is  beyond  me. 
Meantime,  I  adore  the  greater  worth  in  another, 
and  so  become  his  wife.  He  aspires  to  a  higher 
worth  in  another  spirit,  and  is  wife  or  receiver  of 
that  influence. 


SwcDcnborg ;  or,  tbe  ^^stic  133 

Whether  a  self-inquisitorial  habit,  that  he  grew 
into,  from  jealousy  of  the  sins  to  which  men  of 
thought  are  liable,  he  has  acquired,  in  disentan- 
gling and  demonstrating  that  particular  form  of 
moral  disease,  an  acumen  which  no  conscience 
can  resist.  I  refer  to  his  feeling  of  the  profanation 
of  thinking  to  what  is  good  "from  scientifics." 
■''To  reason  about  faith,  is  to  doubt  and  deny.*' 
He  was  painfully  alive  to  the  difference  between 
knowing  and  doing,  and  this  sensibility  is  inces- 
santly expressed.  Philosophers  are,  therefore, 
vipers,  cockatrices,  asps,  hemorrhoids,  presters, 
and  flying  serpents  ;  literary  men  are  conjurors 
and  charlatans. 

But  this  topic  suggests  a  sad  afterthought,  that 
here  we  find  the  seat  of  his  own  pain.  Possibly 
Swedenborg  paid  the  penalty  of  introverted  fac- 
ulties. Success,  or  a  fortunate  genius,  seems  to 
depend  on  a  happy  adjustment  of  heart  and  brain  ; 
on  a  due  proportion,  hard  to  hit,  of  moral  and 
mental  power,  which,  perhaps,  obeys  the  law  of 
those  chemical  ratios  which  make  a  proportion  in 
volumes  necessary  to  combination,  as  when  gases 
will  combine  in  certain  fixed  rates,  but  not  at  any 
rate.  It  is  hard  to  carry  a  full  cup  :  and  this  man, 
profusely  endowed  in  heart  and  mind,  early  fell 
into  dangerous  discord  with  himself.     In  his  Ani- 


134  "Representative  flben 

mal  Kingdom,  he  surprised  us,  by  declaring  that 
he  loved  analysis,  and  not  synthesis;  and  now, 
after  his  fiftieth  year,  he  falls  into  jealousy  of  his 
intellect;  and,  though  aware  that  truth  is  not 
solitary,  nor  is  goodness  solitary,  but  both  must 
ever  mix  and  marry,  he  makes  war  on  his  mind, 
takes  the  part  of  the  conscience  against  it,  and,  on 
all  occasions,  traduces  and  blasphemes  it.  The 
violence  is  instantly  avenged.  Beauty  is  disgraced, 
love  is  unlovely,  when  truth,  the  half  part  of 
heaven,  is  denied,  as  much  as  when  a  bitterness  in 
men  of  talent  leads  to  satire,  and  destroys  the  judg- 
ment. He  is  wise,  but  wise  in  his  own  despite. 
There  is  an  air  of  infinite  grief,  and  the  sound  of 
wailing,  all  over  and  through  this  lurid  universe. 
A  vampyre  sits  in  the  seat  of  the  prophet,  and 
turns  with  gloomy  appetite  to  the  images  of  pain. 
Indeed,  a  bird  does  not  more  readily  weave  its  nest, 
or  a  mole  bore  into  the  ground,  than  this  seer  of 
the  souls  substructs  a  new  hell  and  pit,  each  more 
abominable  than  the  last,  round  every  new  crew 
of  offenders.  He  was  let  down  through  a  column 
that  seemed  of  brass,  but  it  was  formed  of  angelic 
spirits,  that  he  might  descend  safely  amongst  the 
unhappy,  and  witness  the  vastation  of  souls ;  and 
heard  there,  for  a  long  continuance,  their  lamenta- 
tions ;  he  saw  their  tormentors,  who  increase  and 


Swc^enbotfl ;  or,  tbe  iKs^etic  135 

strain  pangs  to  infinity ;  he  saw  the  hell  of  the 
jugglers,  the  hell  of  the  assassins,  the  hell  of  the 
lascivious;  the  hell  of  robbers,  who  kill  and  boil 
men;  the  infernal  tun  of  the  deceitful;  the  ex- 
crementitious  hells;  the  hell  of  the  revengeful, 
whose  faces  resembled  a  round,  broad  cake,  and 
their  arms  rotate  like  a  wheel.  Except  Rabelias 
and  Dean  Swift,  nobody  ever  had  such  science  of 
filth  and  corruption. 

These  books  should  be  used  with  caution.  It  is 
dangerous  to  sculpture  these  evanescing  images  of 
thought.  True  in  transition,  they  become  false  if 
fixed."  It  requires,  for  his  just  apprehension, 
almost  a  genius  equal  to  his  own.  But  when  his 
visions  become  the  stereotyped  language  of  multi- 
tudes of  persons,  of  all  degrees  of  age  and  capacity, 
they  are  perverted.  The  wise  people  of  the  Greek 
race  were  accustomed  to  lead  the  most  intelligent 
and  virtuous  young  men,  as  part  of  their  educa- 
tion, through  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  wherein, 
with  much  pomp  and  graduation,  the  highest 
truths  known  to  ancient  wisdom  were  taught.  An 
ardent  and  contemplative  young  man,  at  eigh- 
teen or  twenty  years,  might  read  once  these  books 
of  Swedenborg,  these  mysteries  of  love  and  con- 
science, and  then  throw  them  aside  for  ever. 
Genius  is  ever  haunted  by  similar   dreams,   when 


136  "Representative  itscn 

the  hells  and  the  heavens  are  opened  to  it.  But 
these  pictures  are  to  be  held  as  mystical,  that  is, 
as  a  quite  arbitrary  and  accidental  picture  of  the 
truth,  —  not  as  the  truth.  Any  other  symbol 
would  be  as  good  :  then  this  is  safely  seen. 

Swedenborg's  system  of  the  world  wants  central 
spontaneity ;  it  is  dynamic,  not  vital,  and  lacks 
power  to  generate  life.  There  is  no  individual  in 
it.  The  universe  is  a  gigantic  crystal,  all  whose 
atoms  and  laminae  lie  in  uninterrupted  order,  and 
with  unbroken  unity,  but  cold  and  still.  What 
seems  an  individual  and  a  will,  is  none.  There  is 
an  immense  chain  of  intermediation,  extending 
from  centre  to  extremes,  which  bereaves  every 
agency  of  all  freedom  and  character.  The  uni- 
verse, in  his  poem,  suffers  under  a  magnetic  sleep, 
and  only  reflects  the  mind  of  the  magnetizer. 
Every  thought  comes  into  each  mind  by  influence 
from  a  society  of  spirits  that  surround  it,  and 
into  these  from  a  higher  society,  and  so  on.  All 
his  types  mean  the  same  few  things.  All  his 
figures  speak  one  speech.  All  his  interlocutors 
Swedenborgize.  Be  they  who  they  may,  to 
this  complexion  must  they  come  at  last.  This 
Charon  ferries  them  all  over  in  his  boat ;  kings, 
counsellors,  cavaliers,  doctors.  Sir  Isaac  Newton, 


Sv^eDenbocs;  or,  tbe  ^^stic  137 

Sir  Hans  Sloane,  King  George,  11. ,  Mahomet,  or 
whosoever,  and  all  gather  one  grimness  of  hue 
and  style.  Only  when  Cicero  comes  by,  our 
gentle  seer  sticks  a  little  at  saying  he  talked  with 
Cicero,  and,  with  a  touch  of  human  relenting, 
remarks,  "  one  whom  it  was  given  me  to  believe 
was  Cicero ;  "  and  when  the  sot  disant  Roman 
opens  his  mouth,  Rome  and  eloquence  have  ebbed 
away, — it  is  plain  theologic  Swedenborg,  like 
the  rest.  His  heavens  and  hells  are  dull ;  fault  of 
want  of  individualism.  The  thousand-fold  rela- 
tion of  men  is  not  there.  The  interest  that 
attaches  in  nature  to  each  man,  because  he  is 
right  by  his  wrong,  and  wrong  by  his  right, 
because  he  defies  all  dogmatizing  and  classifica- 
tion, so  many  allowances,  and  contingences,  and 
futurities,  are  to  be  taken  into  account,  strong  by 
his  vices,  often  paralyzed  by  his  virtues, — sinks 
into  entire  sympathy  with  his  society.  This  want 
reacts  to  the  centre  of  the  system.  Though  the 
agency  of  ''the  Lord"  is  in  every  line  referred 
to  by  name,  it  never  becomes  alive.  There  is  no 
lustre  in  that  eye  which  gazes  from  the  centre, 
and  which  should  vivify  the  immense  dependency 
of  beings. 

The  vice  of  Swedenborg's  mind  is  its  theologic 
determination.     Nothing  with  him  has  the  liberal- 


138  IRcprcsentatlve  jfften 

ity  of  universal  wisdom,  but  we  are  always  in  a 
church.  That  Hebrew  muse,  which  taught  the 
lore  of  right  and  wrong  to  men,  had  the  same  ex- 
cess of  influence  for  him,  it  has  had  for  the  nations. 
The  mode,  as  well  as  the  essence,  was  sacred. 
Palestine  is  ever  the  more  valuable  as  a  chapter 
in  universal  history,  and  ever  the  less  an  available 
element  in  education.  The  genius  of  Swedenborg, 
largest  of  all  modem  souls  in  this  department  of 
thought,  wasted  itself  in  the  endeavor  to  reani-' 
mate  and  conserve  what  had  already  arrived  at 
its  natural  term,  and,  in  the  great  secular  Provi- 
dence, was  retiring  from  its  prominence,  before 
western  modes  of  thought  and  expression.  Swe- 
denborg and  Behmen  both  failed  by  attaching 
themselves  to  the  Christian  symbol,  instead  of  to  the 
moral  sentiment,  which  carries  innumerable  Christ- 
ianities, humanities,  divinities,  in  its  bosom. 

The  excess  of  influence  shows  itself  in  the 
incongruous  importation  of  a  foreign  rhetoric, 
"  What  have  I  to  do,"  asks  the  impatient  reader, 
**  with  jasper  and  sardonyx,  beryl  and  chalcedony ; 
what  with  arks  and  passovers,  ephahs  and  ephods; 
what  with  lepers  and  emerods;  what  with  heave- 
offerings  and  unleavened  bread ;  chariots  of  fire, 
dragons  crowned  and  horned,  behemoth  and  uni- 
corn?    Good  for   orientals,  these  are  nothing  to 


SweDenbors ;  or,  tbe  ^^atic  139 

me.  The  more  learning  you  bring  to  explain 
them,  the  more  glaring  the  impertinence.  The 
more  coherent  and  elaborate  the  system,  the  less  I 
like  it.  I  say,  with  the  Spartan,  *  Why  do  you 
speak  so  much  to  the  purpose,  of  that  which  is 
nothing  to  the  purpose  ? '  My  learning  is  such  as 
God  gave  me  in  my  birth  and  habit,  in  the  delight 
and  study  of  my  eyes,  and  not  of  another  man's. 
Of  all  absurdities,  this  of  some  foreigner,  propos- 
ing to  take  away  my  rhetoric,  and  substitute  his 
own,  and  amuse  me  with  pelican  and  stork,  instead 
thrush  and  robin ;  palm-trees  and  shittim-wood, 
instead  of  sassafras  and  hickory, — seems  the  most 
needless."  • 

Locke  said,  ''God,  when  he  makes  the  prophet, 
does  not  unmake  the  man. ' '  Swedenborg^'s  history 
points  the  remark.  The  parish  disputes,  in  the 
Swedish  church,  between  the  friends  and  foes  of 
Luther  and  Melancthon ,  concerning '  'faith  alone, ' ' 
and  "works  alone,"  intrude  themselves  into  his 
speculations  upon  the  economy  of  the  universe, 
and  of  the  celestial  societies.  The  Lutheran  bishop's 
son,  for  whom  the  heavens  are  opened,  so  that  he 
sees  with  eyes,  and  in  the  richest  symbolic  forms, 
the  awful  truth  of  things,  and  utters  again,  in  his 
books,  as  under  a  heavenly  mandate,  the  indis- 
putable secrets  of  moral  nature, — with  all   these 


I40  IRcpresentative  /iBcn 

grandeurs  resting  upon  him,  remains  the  Lutheran 
bishop's  son ;  his  judgments  are  those  of  a  Swedish 
polemic,  and  his  vast  enlargements  purchased  by 
adamantine  limitations.  He  carries  his  contro- 
versial memory  with  him,  in  his  visits  to  the  souls. 
He  is  like  Michel  Angelo,  who,  in  his  frescoes, 
put  the  cardinal  who  had  offended  him  to  roast 
under  a  mountain  of  devils;  or,  like  Dante,  who 
avenged,  in  vindictive  melodies,  all  his  private 
wrongs;  or,  perhaps  still  more  like  Montaigne's 
parish  priest,  who,  if  a  hailstorm  passes  over  the 
village,  thinks  the  day  of  doom  has  come,  and  the 
cannibals  already  have  got  the  pip.  Swedenbogr 
confounds  us  not  less  with  the  pains  of  Melancthon, 
and  Luther,  and  Wolfius,  and  his  own  books, 
which  ho,  advertises  among  the  angels. 

Under  the  same  theologic  cramp,  many  of  his 
dogmas  are  bound.  His  cardinal  position  in  morals 
is,  that  evils  should  be  shunned  as  sins.  But  he 
does  not  know  what  evil  is,  or  what  good  is,  who 
thinks  any  ground  remains  to  be  occupied,  after 
saying  that  evil  is  to  be  shunned  as  evil.  I  doubt  not 
he  was  led  by  the  desire  to  insert  the  element  of 
personality  of  Deity.  But  nothing  is  added.  One 
man,  you  say,  dreads  erysipelas, — show  him  that 
this  dread  is  evil ;  or,  one  dreads  hell, — show  him 
that  dread  is  evil.    He  who  loves  goodness,  harbors 


SweDenborg;  or,  tbe  /iB^stlc  hi 

angels,  reveres  reverence,  and  lives  with  God,  The 
less  we  have  to  do  with  our  sins,  the  better.  No  man 
can  afford  to  waste  his  moments  in  compunctions. 
"  That  is  active  duty,"  say  the  Hindoos,  "which 
is  not  for  our  bondage ;  that  is  knowledge,  which 
is  for  our  liberation  ;  all  other  duty  is  good  only 
unto  weariness." 

Another  dogma,  growing  out  of  this  pernicious 
theologic  limitation,  is  this  Inferno.  Swedenborg 
has  devils.  Evil,  according  to  old  philosophers, 
is  good  in  the  making.  That  pure  malignity  can 
exist,  is  the  extreme  proposition  of  unbelief.  It 
is  not  to  be  entertained  by  a  rational  agent;  it  is 
atheism;  it  it  the  last  profanation.  Euripides 
rightly  said, — 

"  Goodness  and  being  in  the  gods  are  one ; 
He  who  imputes  ill  to  them  makes  them  none." 

To  what  a  painful  perversion  had  Gothic  the- 
ology arrived,  that  Swedenborg  admitted  no  con- 
version for  evil  spirits !  But  the  divine  effort  is 
never  relaxed  ;  the  carrion  in  the  sun  will  convert 
itself  to  grass  and  flowers;  and  man,  though  in 
brothels,  or  jails,  or  on  gibbets,  is  on  his  way  to 
all  that  is  good  and  true.  Burns,  with  the  wild 
humor  of  his  apostrophe  to  ''poor  old  Nickie 
Ben," 

*'  O  wad  ye  talc  a  thought,  and  mend  !  " 

lO 


142  IReprcscntativc  /Bben 

has  the  advantage  of  the  vindictive  theologian. 
Every  thing  is  superficial,  and  perishes,  but  love 
and  truth  only.  The  largest  is  always  the  truest 
sentiment,  and  we  feel  the  more  generous  spirit 
of  the  Indian  Vishnu, — ''I  am  the  same  to  all 
mankind.  There  is  not  one  who  is  worthy  of  my 
love  or  hatred.  They  who  serve  me  with  adora- 
tion,— I  am  in  them,  and  they  in  me.  If  one  whose 
ways  are  altogether  evil,  serve  me  alone,  he  is  as 
respectable  as  the  just  man ;  he  is  altogether  well 
employed ;  he  soon  becometh  of  a  virtuous  spirit, 
and  obtaineth  eternal  happiness." 

For  the  anomalous  pretension  of  Revelations 
of  the  other  world, — only  his  probity  and  genius 
can  entitle  it  to  any  serious  regard.  His  revela- 
tions destroy  their  credit  by  running  into  detail. 
If  a  man  say,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  has  informed 
him  that  the  Last  Judgment  (or  the  last  of  the 
judgments)  took  place  in  1757  ;  or,  that  the 
Dutch,  in  the  other  world,  live  in  a  heaven  by 
themselves,  and  the  English,  in  a  heaven  by  them- 
selves ;  I  reply,  that  the  Spirit  which  is  holy,  is  re- 
served, taciturn,  and  deals  in  laws.  The  rumors 
of  ghosts  and  hobgoblins  gossip  and  tell  fortunes. 
The  teaching  of  the  high  Spirit  are  abstemious, 
and,  in  regard  to  particulars,  negative.  Socrates' 
Genius  did  not  advise  him  to  act  or  to  find,  but 


SwcDcnborg ;  or,  tbe  ^s^tlc  143 

if  he  proposed  to  do  somewhat  not  advantageous, 
it  dissuaded  him.  "What  God  is,"  he  said, 
''I  know  not;  what  he  is  not,  I  know."  The 
Hindoos  have  denominated  the  Supreme  Being, 
the  ''Internal  Check."  The  illuminated  Quak- 
ers explained  their  Light,  not  as  somewhat  which 
leads  to  any  action,  but  it  appears  as  an  obstruction 
to  any  thing  unfit.  But  the  right  examples  are 
private  experiences,  which  are  absolutely  at  one 
on  this  point.  Strictly  speaking,  Swedenborg's 
revelation  is  a  confounding  of  planes, — a  capital 
offence  in  so  learned  a  categorist.  This  is  to  carry 
the  law  of  surface  into  the  plane  of  substance,  to 
carry  individualism  and  its  fopperies  into  the  realm 
of  essences  and  generals,  which  is  dislocation  and 
chaos. 

The  secret  of  heaven  is  kept  from  age  to  age. 
No  imprudent,  no  sociable  angel  ever  dropt  an 
early  syllable  to  answer  the  longings  of  saints,  the 
fears  of  mortals.  We  should  have  listened  on  our 
knees  to  any  favorite,  who,  by  stricter  obedience, 
had  brought  his  thoughts  into  parallelism  with  the 
celestial  currents,  and  could  hint  to  human  ears 
the  scenery  and  circumstance  of  the  newly  parted 
soul.  But  it  is  certain  that  it  must  tally  with  what 
is  best  in  nature.  It  must  not  be  inferior  in  tone 
to   the   already   known  works  of  the    artist  who 


144  'Representative  flien 

sculptures  the  globes  of  the  firmament,  and  writes 
the  moral  law.  It  must  be  fresher  than  rainbows, 
stabler  than  mountains,  agreeing  with  flowers, 
with  tides,  and  the  rising  and  setting  of  autumnal 
stars.  Melodious  poets  shall  be  hoarse  as  street 
ballads,  when  once  the  penetrating  key-note  of 
nature  and  spirit  is  sounded, — the  earth-beat,  sea- 
beat,  heart-beat,  which  makes  the  tune  to  which 
the  sun  rolls,  and  the  globule  of  blood,  and  the 
sap  of  trees. 

In  this  mood,  we  hear  the  rumor  that  the  seer 
has  arrived,  and  his  tale  is  told.  But  there  is  no 
beauty,  no  heaven  :  for  angels,  goblins.  The  sad 
muse  loves  night  and  death,  and  the  pit.  His  In- 
ferno is  mesmeric.  His  spiritual  world  bears  the 
same  relation  to  the  generosities  and  joys  of  truth, 
of  which  human  souls  have  already  made  us  cog- 
nizant, as  a  man's  bad  dreams  bear  to  his  ideal 
life.  It  is  indeed  very  like,  in  its  endless  power 
of  lurid  pictures,  to  the  phenomena  of  dreaming, 
which  nightly  turns  many  an  honest  gentleman, 
benevolent,  but  dyspeptic,  into  a  wretch,  skulking 
like  a  dog  about  the  outer  yards  and  kennels  of 
creation.  When  he  mounts  into  the  heavens,  I  do 
not  hear  its  language.  A  man  should  not  tell  me 
that  he  has  walked  among  the  angels ;  his  proof 
is,  that  his  eloquence  makes  me  one.     Shall  the 


Swe&enborg ;  or,  tbe  ^i^stlc  hs 

archangels  be  less  majestic  and  sweet  than  the  fig- 
ures that  have  actually  walked  the  earth  ?  These 
angels  that  Swedenborg  paints  give  us  no  very  high 
idea  of  their  discipline  and  culture;  they  are  all 
country  parsons  ;  their  heaven  is  a  fef^  champetre^ 
an  evangelical  picnic,  or  French  distribution  of 
prizes  to  virtuous  peasants.  Strange,  scholastic, 
didactic,  passionless,  bloodless  man,  who  denotes 
classes  of  souls  as  a  botanist  disposes  of  a  carex, 
and  visits  doleful  hells  as  a  stratum  of  chalk  or 
hornblende  !  He  has  no  sympathy.  He  goes  up 
and  down  the  world  of  men,  a  modern  Rhada- 
manthus  in  gold-headed  cane  and  peruke,  and 
with  nonchalance,  and  the  air  of  a  referee,  dis- 
tributes souls.  The  warm,  many-weathered,  pas- 
sionate-peopled world  is  to  him  a  grammar  of 
hieroglyphs,  or  an  emblematic  freemason's  proces- 
sion. How  different  is  Jacob  Behmen !  he  is 
tremulous  with  emotion,  and  listens  awe-struck, 
with  the  gentlest  humanity,  to  the  Teacher  whose 
lessons  he  conveys;  and  when  he  asserts  that, 
"in  some  sort,  love  is  greater  than  God,"  his 
heart  beats  so  high  that  the  thumping  against  his 
leathern  coat  is  audible  across  the  centuries.  'Tis 
a  great  difference.  Behmen  is  healthily  and  beau- 
tifully wise,  notwithstanding  the  mystical  narrow- 
ness and   incommunicableness.      Swedenborg   is 


146  •Representative  Aen 

disagreeably  wise,  and,  with  all  his  accumulated 
gifts,  paralyzes  and  repels. 

It  is  the  best  sign  of  a  great  nature,  that  it  opens 
a  foreground,  and,  like  the  breath  of  morning 
landscapes,  invites  us  onward.  Swedenborg  is 
retrospective,  nor  can  we  divest  him  of  his  mat- 
tock and  shroud.  Some  minds  are  forever  re- 
strained from  descending  into  nature  ;  others  are 
forever  prevented  from  ascending  out  of  it.  With 
a  force  of  many  men,  he  could  never  break  the 
umbilical  cord  which  held  him  to  nature,  and  he 
did  not  rise  to  the  platform  of  pure  genius. 

It  is  remarkable  that  this  man,  who,  by  his 
perception  of  symbols,  saw  the  poetic  construction 
of  things,  and  the  primary  relation  of  mind  to 
matter,  remained  entirely  devoid  of  the  whole  ap- 
paratus of  poetic  expression,  which  that  percep- 
tion creates.  He  knew  the  grammar  and  rudi- 
ments of  the  Mother-Tongue, — how  could  he  not 
read  off  one  strain  into  music  ?  Was  he  like  Saadi, 
who,  in  his  vision,  designed  to  fill  his  lap  with  the 
celestial  flowers,  as  presents  for  his  friends ;  but 
the  fragrance  of  the  roses  so  intoxicated  him,  that 
the  skirt  dropped  from  his  hands  ?  or,  is  reporting 
a  breach  of  the  manners  of  that  heavenly  society? 
or,  was  it  that  he  saw  the  vision  intellectually,  and 
hence   that   chiding  of  the  intellectual  that   per- 


SwcDenborg  ;  or,  tbe  ^^stlc  147 

vades  his  books  ?  Be  it  as  it  may,  his  books  have 
no  melody,  no  emotion,  no  humor,  no  relief  to 
the  dead  prosaic  level.  In  his  profuse  and  accu- 
rate imagery  is  no  pleasure,  for  there  is  no  beauty. 
We  wander  forlorn  in  a  lack-lustre  landscape.  No 
bird  ever  sang  in  all  these  gardens  of  the  dead. 
The  entire  want  of  poetry  in  so  transcendent  a 
mind  betokens  the  disease,  and,  like  a  hoarse  voice 
in  a  beautiful  person,  is  a  kind  of  warning.  I 
think,  sometimes,  he  will  not  be  read  longer. 
His  great  name  will  turn  a  sentence.  His  books 
have  became  a  monument.  His  laurel  so  largely 
mixed  with  cypress,  a  charnel-breath  so  mingles 
with  the  temple  incense,  that  boys  and  maids  will 
shun  the  spot. 

Yet,  in  this  immolation  of  genius  and  fame  at 
the  shrine  of  conscience,  is  a  merit  sublime  beyond 
praise.  He  lived  to  purpose  :  he  gave  a  verdict. 
He  elected  goodness  as  the  clue  to  which  the  soul 
must  cling  in  all  this  labyrinth  of  nature.  Many 
opinions  conflict  as  to  the  true  centre.  In  the 
shipwreck,  some  cling  to  running  rigging,  some  to 
cask  and  barrel,  some  to  spars,  some  to  mast  ;  the 
pilot  chooses  with  science, — I  plant  myself  here  ; 
all  will  sink  before  this;  '^  he  comes  to  land  who 
sails  with  me."  Do  not  rely  on  heavenly  favor, 
or  on   compassion  to  folly,  or  on   prudence,  on 


148  IRcprescntativc  Itsen 

common  sense,  the  old  usage  and  main  chance  of 
men  ;  nothing  can  keep  you, — not  fate,  nor  health, 
nor  admirable  intellect  ;  none  can  keep  you,  but 
rectitude  only,  rectitude  forever  and  ever  ! — and, 
with  a  tenacity  that  never  swerved  in  all  his 
studies,  inventions,  dreams,  he  adheres  to  this 
brave  choice.  I  think  of  him  as  of  some  trans- 
migrating votary  of  Indian  legend,  who  says, 
"  though  I  be  dog,  or  jackal,  or  pismire,  in  the 
last  rudiments  of  nature,  under  what  integument 
or  ferocity,  I  cleave  to  right,  as  the  sure  ladder 
that  leads  up  to  man  and  to  God." 

Swedenborg  has  rendered  a  double  service  to 
mankind,  which  is  now  only  beginning  to  be 
known.  By  the  science  of  experiment  and  use, 
he  made  his  first  steps ;  he  observed  and  published 
the  laws  of  nature ;  and,  ascending  by  just  de- 
grees, from  events  to  their  summits  and  causes, 
he  was  fired  with  piety  at  the  harmonies  he  felt, 
and  abandoned  himself  to  his  joy  and  worship. 
This  was  his  first  service.  If  the  glory  was  too 
bright  for  his  eyes  to  bear,  if  he  staggered  under 
the  trance  of  delight,  the  more  excellent  is  the 
spectacle  he  saw,  the  realities  of  being  which  beam 
and  blaze  through  him,  and  which  no  infirmities 
of  the  prophet  are  suffered  to  obscure ;  and  he 
renders  a  second  passive  service  to  men,  not   less 


SweC)cnborg;  or,  tbc  ISs^etic  149 

than  the  first,  —  perhaps,  in  the  great   circle   of    x 
being,  and  in  the  retributions  of  spiritual   nature, 
not  less  glorious  or  less  beautiful  to  himself. 


MONTAIGNE ; 

OR, 

THE  SKEPTIC. 


IV. 
MONTAIGNE;    OR,  THE    SKEPTIC. 


Every  fact  is  related  on  one  side  to  sensation, 
and,  on  the  other,  to  morals.  The  game  of 
thought  is,  on  the  appearance  of  one  of  these 
two  sides,  to  find  the  other ;  given  the  upper,  to 
find  the  under  side.  Nothing  so  thin,  but  has 
these  two  faces ;  and,  when  the  observer  has  seen 
the  obverse,  he  turns  it  over  to  see  the  reverse. 

Life  is  a  pitching  of  this  penny, — heads  or  tails. 
We  never  tire  of  this  game,  because  there  is  still 
a  slight  shudder  of  astonishment  at  the  exhibition 
of  the  other  face,  at  the  contrast  of  the  two  faces. 
A  man  is  flushed  with  success,  and  bethinks  him- 
self what  this  good  luck  signifies.  He  drives  his 
bargain  in  the  street ;  but  it  occurs,  that  he  also 
is  bought  and  sold.  He  sees  the  beauty  of  a 
human  face,  and  searches  the  cause  of  that 
beauty,  which  must  be  more  beautiful.  He 
153 


154  *Reprcscntative  /Ben 

builds  his  fortunes,  maintains  the  laws,  cherishes 
his  children ;  but  he  asks  himself,  why  ?  and 
whereto  ?  This  head  and  this  tail  are  called,  in 
the  language  of  philosophy.  Infinite  and  Finite  ; 
Relative  and  Absolute  ;  Apparent  and  Real ;  and 
many  fine  names  beside. 

Each  man  is  born  with  a  predisposition  to  one 
or  the  other  of  these  sides  of  nature ;  and  it  will 
easily  happen  that  men  will  be  found  devoted  to 
one  or  the  other.  One  class  has  the  perception 
of  difference,  and  is  conversant  with  facts  and 
surfaces ;  cities  and  persons ;  and  the  bringing 
certain  things  to  pass ; — the  men  of  talent  and 
action.  Another  class  have  the  perception  of 
identity,  and  are  men  of  faith  and  philosophy, 
men  of  genius. 

Each  of  these  riders  drives  too  fast.  Plotinus 
believes  only  in  philosophers;  Fenelon,  in  saints; 
Pindar  and  Byron,  in  poets.  Read  the  haughty 
language  in  which  Plato  and  the  Platonists  speak 
of  all  men  who  are  not  devoted  to  their  own 
shining  abstractions :  other  men  are  rats  and 
mice.  The  literary  class  is  usually  proud  and 
exclusive.  The  correspondence  of  Pope  and 
Swift  describes  mankind  around  them  as  mon- 
sters ;  and  that  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  in  our 
own  time,  is  scarcely  more  kind. 


/iBontalflne;  or,  tbc  Sftcptic  155 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  arrogance  comes. 
The  genius  is  a  genius  by  the  first  look  he  casts 
on  any  object.  Is  his  eye  creative  ?  Does  he 
not  rest  in  angles  and  colors,  but  beholds  the 
design, — he  will  presently  undervalue  the  actual 
object.  In  powerful  moments,  his  thought  has 
dissolved  the  works  of  art  and  nature  into  their 
causes,  so  that  the  works  appear  heavy  and 
faulty.  He  has  a  conception  of  beauty  which 
the  sculptor  cannot  embody.  Picture,  statue, 
temple,  railroad,  steam-engine,  existed  first  in  an 
artist's  mind,  without  flaw,  mistake,  or  friction, 
which  impair  the  executed  models.  So  did  the 
church,  the  state,  college,  court,  social  circle,  and 
all  the  institutions.  It  is  not  strange  that  these 
men,  remembering  what  they  have  seen  and 
hoped  of  ideas,  should  affirm  disdainfully  the 
superiority  of  ideas.  Having  at  some  time  seen 
that  the  happy  soul  will  carry  all  the  arts  in 
power,  they  say,  Why  cumber  ourselves  with 
superfluous  realizations?  and,  like  dreaming  beg- 
gars, they  assume  to  speak  and  act  as  if  these 
values  were  already  substantiated. 

On  the  other  part,  the  men  of  toil  and  trade 
and  luxury, — the  animal  world,  including  the 
animal  in  the  philosopher  and  poet  also, — and 
the  practical  world,  including  the  painful  drudg- 


iS6  IRepresentative  /Ben 

eries  which  are  never  excused  to  philosopher  or 
poet  any  more  than  to  the  rest, — weigh  heavily  on 
the  other  side.  The  trade  in  our  streets  believes 
in  no  metaphysical  causes,  thinks  nothing  of 
the  force  which  necessitated  traders  and  a  trading 
planet  to  exist :  no,  but  sticks  to  cotton,  sugar, 
wool,  and  salt.  The  ward  meetings,  on  election 
days,  are  not  softened  by  any  misgiving  of  the 
value  of  these  ballotings.  Hot  life  is  streaming 
in  a  single  direction.  To  the  men  of  this  world,  ta 
the  animal  strength  and  spirits,  to  the  men  of 
practical  power,  whilst  immersed  in  it,  the  man 
of  ideas  appears  out  of  his  reason.  They  alone 
have  reason. 

Things  always  bring  their  own  philosophy 
with  them,  that  is,  prudence.  No  man  acquires 
property  without  acquiring  with  it  a  little  arith- 
metic, also.  In  England,  the  richest  country  that 
ever  existed,  property  stands  for  more,  compared 
with  personal  ability,  than  in  any  other.  After 
dinner,  a  man  believes  less,  denies  more  :  verities 
have  lost  some  charm.  After  dinner,  arithmetic 
is  the  only  science :  ideas  are  disturbing,  incendi- 
ary, follies  of  young  men,  repudiated  by  the  solid 
portion  of  society :  and  a  man  comes  to  be  val- 
ued by  his  athletic  and  animal  qualities.  Spence 
relates,   that    Mr.    Pope  was  with  Sir    Godfrey 


lisontaiQnc ;  or,  tbe  Skeptic  157 

Kneller,  one  day,  when  his  nephew,  a  Guinea 
trader,  came  in.  '' Nephew,"  said  Sir  Godfrey, 
''you  have  the  honor  of  seeing  the  two  greatest 
men  in  the  world."  "  I  don't  know  how  great 
men  you  maybe,"  said  the  Guinea  man,  ''but 
I  don't  like  your  looks.  I  have  often  bought  a 
man  much  better  than  both  of  you,  all  muscles 
and  bones,  for  ten  guineas."  Thus,  the  men  of 
the  senses  revenge  themselves  on  the  professors^ 
and  repay  scorn  for  scorn.  The  first  had  leaped 
to  conclusions  not  yet  ripe,  and  say  more  than  is 
true ;  the  others  make  themselves  merry  with  the 
philosopher,  and  weigh  man  by  the  pound. — They 
believe  that  mustard  bites  the  tongue,  that  pepper 
is  hot,  friction -matches  are  incendiary,  revolvers 
to  be  avoided,  and  suspenders  hold  up  pantaloons; 
that  there  is  much  sentiment  in  a  chest  of  tea  ; 
and  a  man  will  be  eloquent,  if  you  give  him  good 
wine.  Are  you  tender  and  scrupulous, — you  must 
eat  more  mince-pie.  They  hold  that  Luther  had 
milk  in  him  when  he  said, 

"  Wer  nicht  liebt  Wein,  Weib,  und  Gesang 
Der  bleibt  ein  Narr  sein  Leben  lang;" 

and  when  he  advised  a  young  scholar  perplexed  • 
with   fore-ordination   and  free-will,    to   get  well 
drunk.     "The  nerves,"  says  Cabanis,   "  they  are 


158  IRcpregcntative  /Ren 

the  man."  My  neighbor,  a  jolly  farmer,  in  the 
tavern  bar-room,  thinks  that  the  use  of  money 
is  sure  and  speedy  spending.  '*  For  his  part," 
he  says,  **he  puts  his  down  his  neck,  and  gets 
the  good  of  it." 

The  inconvenience  of  this  v^^ay  of  thinking  is, 
that  it  runs  into  indiiferentism,  and  then  into  dis- 
gust. Life  is  eating  us  up.  We  shall  be  fables 
presently.  Keep  cool :  it  will  be  all  one  a  hun- 
dred years  hence.  Life's  well  enough;  but  we 
shall  be  glad  to  get  out  of  it,  and  they  will  all  be 
glad  to  have  us.  Why  should  we  fret  and  drudge  ? 
Our  meat  will  taste  to-morrow  as  it  did  yesterday, 
and  we  may  at  last  have  had  enough  of  it.  "  Ah," 
said  my  languid  gentleman  at  Oxford,  *' there's 
nothing  new  or  true, — and  no  matter." 

With  a  little  more  bitterness,  the  cynic  moans  : 
our  life  is  like  an  ass  led  to  market  by  a  bundle  of 
hay  being  carried  before  him  :  he  sees  nothing  but 
the  bundle  of  hay.  '*  There  is  so  much  trouble 
in  coming  into  the  world,"  said  Lord  Boling- 
broke,  ''  and  so  much  more,  as  well  as  meanness, 
in  going  out  of  it,  that  'tis  hardly  worth  while  to  be 
here  at  all. "  I  knew  a  philosopher  of  this  kidney, 
who  was  accustomed  briefly  to  sum  up  his  experi- 
ence of  human  nature  in  saying,  '*  Mankind  is  a 
damned  rascal : ' '  and   the    natural    corollary   is 


Montaigne;  or,  tbe  Sfteptic  159 

pretty  sure  to  follow,—''  The  world  lives  by  hum- 
bug, and  so  will  I. ' ' 

The  abstractionist  and  the  materialist  thus  mutu- 
ally exasperating  each  other,  and  the  scoffer  ex- 
pressing the  worst  of  materialism,  there  arises  a 
third  party  to  occupy  the  middle  ground  between 
these  two,  the  skeptic,  namely.  He  finds  both 
wrong  by  being  in  extremes.  He  labors  to 
plant  his  feet,  to  be  the  beam  of  the  balance.  He 
will  not  go  beyond  his  card.  He  sees  the  one- 
sidedness  of  these  men  of  the  street;  he  will  not 
be  a  Gibeonite ;  he  stands  for  the  intellectual  fac- 
ulties, a  cool  head,  and  whatever  serves  to  keep  it 
cool :  no  unadvised  industry,  no  unrewarded  self- 
devotion,  no  loss  of  the  brains  in  toil.  Am  I  an 
ox,  or  a  dray? — You  are  both  in  extremes,  he 
says.  You  that  will  have  all  solid,  and  a  world  of 
pig-lead,  deceive  yourselves  grossly.  You  believe 
yourselves  rooted  and  grounded  on  adament  ;  and 
yet,  if  we  uncover  the  last  facts  of  our  knowledge, 
you  are  spinning  like  bubbles  in  a  river,  you  know 
not  whither  or  whence,  and  you  are  bottomed  and 
capped  and  wrapped  in  delusions. 

Neither  will  he  be  betrayed  to  a  book,  and 
wrapped  in  a  gown.  The  studious  class  are  their 
own  victims  :  they  are  thin  and  pale,  their  feet 
are  cold,  their  heads  are  hot,  the  night  is  without 


i6o  "Representative  /Ben 

sleep,  the  day  a  fear  of  interruption, — pallor, 
squalor,  hunger,  and  egotism.  If  you  come  near 
them,  and  see  what  conceits  they  entertain, — they 
are  abstractionists,  and  spend  their  days  and' 
nights  in  dreaming  some  dreams ;  in  expecting  tlie 
homage  of  society  to  some  precious  scheme  built 
on  a  truth,  but  destitute  of  proportion  in  its  pre- 
sentment, of  justness  in  its  application,  and  of  all 
energy  of  will  in  the  schemer  to  embody  and  vital- 
ize it. 

But  I  see  plainly,  he  says,  that  I  cannot  see.  I 
know  that  humaa  strength  is  not  in  extremes,  but 
in  avoiding  extremes.  I,  at  least,  will  shun  the 
weakness  of  philosophizing  beyond  my  depth. 
What  is  the  use  of  pretending  to  powers  we  have 
not  ?  What  is  the  use  of  pretending  to  assurances 
we  have  not,  respecting  the  other  life  ?  Why  ex- 
aggerate the  power  of  virtue  ?  Why  be  an  angel 
before  your  time  ?  These  strings,  wound  up  too 
high,  will  snap.  If  there  is  a  wish  for  immortality, 
and  no  evidence,  why  not  say  just  that?  If  there 
are  conflicting  evidences,  why  not  state  them?  If 
there  is  not  ground  for  a  candid  thinker  to  make 
up  his  mind,  yea  or  nay, — why  not  suspend  the 
judgment  ?  I  weary  of  these  dogmatizers.  I  tire 
of  these  hacks  of  routine,  who  deny  the  dogmas. 
t  neither  affirm  nor  deny.     I  stand  here  to  try  the 


^ontalQtic;  or,  tbe  Sfteptic  i6i 

case.  I  am  here  to  consider,  aKeTrreiv,  to  con- 
sider how  it  is.  I  will  try  to  keep  the  balance 
true.  Of  what  use  to  take  the  chair,  and  glibly 
rattle  off  theories  of  societies,  religion,  and  nature, 
when  I  know  that  practical  objections  lie  in  the 
way,  insurmountable  by  me  and  by  my  mates  ? 
Why  so  talkative  in  public,  when  each  of  my 
neighbors  can  pin  me  to  my  seat  by  arguments  I 
cannot  refute  ?  Why  pretend  that  life  is  so  sim- 
ple a  game,  when  we  know  how  subtle  and  elusive 
the  Proteus  is  ?  Why  think  to  shut  up  all  things 
in  your  narrow  coop,  when  we  know  there  are  not 
one  or  two  only,  but  ten,  twenty,  a  thousand 
things,  and  unlike  ?  Why  fancy  that  you  have  all 
the  truth  in  your  keeping?  There  is  much  to  say 
on  all  sides. 

Who  shall  forbid  a  wise  skepticism,  seeing  that 
there  is  no  practical  question  on  which  any  thing 
more  than  an  approximate  solution  can  be  had  ? 
Is  not  marriage  an  open  question,  when  it  is 
alleged,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  that 
such  as  are  in  the  institution  wish  to  get  out,  and 
such  as  are  out  wish  to  get  in  ?  And  the  reply  of 
Socrates,  to  him  who  asked  whether  he  should 
choose  a  wife,  still  remains  reasonable,  "that, 
whether  he  should  choose  one  or  not,  he  would 
repent  it."     Is  not  the  state  a  question?     All  so- 


i62  IReprcscntative  ISsen 

ciety  is  divided  in  opinion  on  the  subject  of  the 
state.  Nobody  loves  it ;  great  numbers  dislike  it, 
and  suffer  conscientious  scruples  to  allegiance  : 
and  the  only  defence  set  up,  is,  the  fear  of  doing 
worse  in  disorganizing.  Is  it  otherwise  with  the 
church  ?  Or,  to  put  any  of  the  questions  which 
touch  mankind  nearest,  —  shall  the  young  man  aim 
at  a  leading  part  in  law,  in  politics,  in  trade?  It 
will  not  be  pretended  that  a  success  in  either  of 
these  kinds  is  quite  coincident  with  what  is  best 
and  inmost  in  his  mind.  Shall  he,  then,  cutting 
the  stays  that  hold  him  fast  to  the  social  state, 
put  out  to  sea  with  no  guidance  but  his  genius? 
There  is  much  to  say  on  both  sides.  Remember 
the  open  question  between  the  present  order  of 
*'  competition,"  and  the  friends  of  ** attractive  and 
associated  labor."  The  generous  minds  embrace 
the  proposition  of  labor  shared  by  all ;  it  is  the 
only  honesty  ;  nothing  else  is  safe.  It  is  from  the 
poor  man's  hut  alone,  that  strength  and  virtue 
come  :  and  yet,  on  the  other  side,  it  is  alleged  that 
labor  impairs  the  form,  and  breaks  the  spirit  of 
man,  and  the  laborers  cry  unanimously,  ''  We  have 
no  thoughts."  Culture,  how  indispensable!  I 
cannot  forgive  you  the  want  of  accomplishment; 
and  yet,  culture  will  instantly  destroy  that  chiefest 
beauty  of  spontaneousness.     Excellent  is  culture 


/IBontaffine;  or,  tbe  Sfteptlc  163 

for  a  savage  ;  but  once  let  him  read  in  the  book, 
and  he  is  no  longer  able  not  to  think  of  Plutarch's 
heroes.  In  short,  since  true  fortitude  of  under- 
standing consists  *'in  not  letting  what  we  know 
be  embarrassed  by  what  we  do  not  know,"  we. 
ought  to  secure  those  advantages  which  we  can 
command,  and  not  risk  them  by  clutching  after 
the  airy  and  unattainable.  Come,  no  chimeras  ! 
Let  us  go  abroad  •  let  us  mix  in  affairs ;  let  us 
learn,  and  get,  and  have,  and  climb.  **  Men  are  a 
sort  of  moving  plants,  and,  like  trees,  receive  a 
great  part  of  their  nourishment  from  the  air.  If 
they  keep  too  much  at  home,  they  pine."  Let 
us  have  a  robust,  manly  life ;  let  us  know  what 
we  know,  for  certain  ;  what  we  have,  let  it  be 
solid,  and  seasonable,  and  our  own.  A  world  in 
the  hand  is  worth  two  in  the  bush.  Let  us  have 
to  do  with  real  men  and  women,  and  not  with 
skipping  ghosts. 

This,  then,  is  the  right  ground  of  the  skeptic, — 
this  of  consideration,  of  self-containing;  not  at  all 
of  unbelief;  not  at  all  of  universal  denying,  nor 
of  universal  doubting, — doubting  even  that  he 
doubts ;  least  of  all,  of  scoffing  and  profligate  jeer- 
ing at  all  that  is  stable  and  good.  These  are  no 
more  his  moods  than  arc  those  of  religion  and 
philosophy.     He  is   the  considerer,  the  prudent. 


i64  IRcprcsentativc  ^cn 

taking  in  sail,  counting  stock,  husbanding  his 
means,  believing  that  a  man  has  too  many  en- 
emies, than  that  he  can  afford  to  be  his  own  ;  that 
we  cannot  give  ourselves  too  many  advantages,  in 
•this  unequal  conflict,  with  powers  so  vast  and  un- 
weariable  ranged  on  one  side,  and  this  little,  con- 
ceited, vulnerable  popinjay  that  a  man  is,  bobbing 
■up  and  down  into  every  danger,  on  the  other.  It 
is  a  position  taken  up  for  better  defence,  as  of  more 
safety,  and  one  that  can  be  maintained;  and  it 
is  one  of  more  opportunity  and  range :  as,  when 
we  build  a  house,  the  rule  is,  to  set  it  not  too 
high  nor  too  low,  under  the  wind,  but  out  of 
the  dirt. 

The  philosophy  we  want  is  one  of  fluxions  and 
mobility.  The  Spartan  and  Stoic  schemes  are  too 
stark  and  stiff"  for  our  occasion.  A  theory  of  Saint 
John,  and  of  non-resistance,  seems,  on  the  other 
hand,  too  thin  and  aerial.  We  want  some  coat 
woven  of  elastic  steel,  stout  as  the  first,  and  limber 
as  the  second.  We  want  a  ship  in  these  billows 
we  inhabit.  An  angular,  dogmatic  house  would 
be  rent  to  chips  and  splinters,  in  this  storm  of  many 
elements.  No,  it  must  be  tight,  and  fit  to  the  form 
of  man,  to  live  at  all ;  as  a  shell  is  the  architec- 
ture of  a  house  founded  on  the  sea.  The  soul  of 
man  must  be  the  type  of  our  scheme,  just  as  the 


/Hbontaianc ;  or,  tbe  Sfteptic  165 

body  of  man  is  tbe  type  after  which  a  dwelling- 
house  is  built.  Adaptiveness  is  the  peculiarity  of 
human  nature.  We  are  golden  averages,  volitant 
stabilities,  compensated  or  periodic  errors,  houses 
founded  on  the  sea.  The  wise  skeptic  wishes  to 
have  a  near  view  of  the  best  game,  and  the  chief 
players;  what  is  best  in  the  planet;  art  and  nature, 
places  and  events,  but  mainly  men.  Every  thing 
that  is  excellent  in  mankind, — a  form  of  grace,  an 
arm  of  iron,  lips  of  persuasion,  a  brain  of  re- 
sources, every  one  skilful  to  play  and  win, — he  will 
see  and  judge. 

The  terms  of  admission  to  this  spectacle,  are, 
that  he  have  a  certain  solid  and  intelligible  way 
of  living  of  his  own;  some  method  of  answering 
the  inevitable  needs  of  human  life ;  proof  that  he 
has  played  with  skill  and  success;  that  he  has 
evinced  the  temper,  stoutness,  and  the  range  of 
qualities  which,  among  his  contemporaries  and 
countrymen,  entitle  him  to  fellowship  and  trust. 
For,  the  secrets  of  life  are  not  shown  except  to 
sympathy  and  likeness.  Men  do  not  confide  them- 
selves to  boys,  or  coxcombs,  or  pedants,  but  to 
their  peers.  Some  wise  limitation,  as  the  modern 
phrase  is ;  some  condition  between  the  extremes, 
and  having  itself  a  positive  quality;  some  stark 
and  sufficient  man,  who  is  not  salt  or  sugar,  but 


i66  IReprcsentative  Osen 

sufficiently  related  to  the  world  to  do  justice  to 
Paris  or  London,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  vigorous 
and  original  thinker,  whom  cities  can  not  overawe, 
but  who  uses  them, — is  the  fit  person  to  occupy 
this  ground  of  speculation. 

These  qualities  meet  in  the  character  of  Mon- 
taigne. And  yet,  since  the  personal  regard  which 
I  entertain  for  Montaigne  may  be  unduly  great,  I 
will,  under  the  shield  of  this  prince  of  egotists, 
offer,  as  an  apology  for  electing  him  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  skepticism,  a  word  or  two  to  explain 
how  my  love  began  and  grew  for  this  admirable 
gossip. 

A  single  odd  volume  of  Cotton's  translation  of 
the  Essays  remained  to  me  from  my  father's 
library,  when  a  boy.  It  lay  long  neglected,  until, 
after  many  years,  when  I  was  newly  escaped  from 
college,  I  read  tlie  book,  and  procured  the  remain- 
ing volumes.  I  remember  the  delight  and  wonder 
in  which  I  lived  with  it.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  I 
had  myself  written  the  book,  in  some  former  life, 
so  sincerely  it  spoke  to  my  thought  and  experience. 
It  happened,  when  in  Paris,  in  1833,  that,  in  the 
cemetery  of  Pere  le  Chaise,  I  came  to  a  tomb  of 
Augustus  Collignon,  who  died  in  1830,  aged  sixty- 
eight  years,  and  who,  said  the  monument,  '' lived 
to  do  right,  and  had  formed  himself  to  virtue  on 


^ontaiflnc;  or,  tbc  Sfteptic  167 

the  Essays  of  Montaigne."  Some  years  later,  I 
became  acquainted  with  an  accomplished  English 
poet,  John  Sterling ;  and,  in  prosecuting  my  cor- 
respondence, I  found  that,  from  a  love  of  Mon- 
taigne, he  had  made  a  pilgrimage  to  his  chateau, 
still  standing  near  Castellan,  in  Peri gord,  and, 
after  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  had  copied  from 
the  walls  of  his  library  the  inscriptions  which 
Montaigne  had  written  there.  That  Journal  of 
Mr.  Sterling's,  published  in  the  Westminster  Re- 
view, Mr.  Hazlitt  has  reprinted  in  the  Prolegomena 
to  his  edition  of  the  Essays.  I  heard  with  pleasure 
that  one  of  the  newly-discovered  autographs  of 
William  Shakspeare  was  in  a  copy  of  Florio's 
translation  of  Montaigne.  It  is  the  only  book 
which  we  certainly  know  to  have  been  in  the  poet's 
library.  And,  oddly  enough,  the  duplicate  copy 
of  Florio,  which  the  British  Museum  purchased, 
with  a  view  of  protecting  the  Shakspeare  auto- 
graph (as  I  was  informed  in  the  Museum),  turned 
out  to  have  the  autograph  of  Ben  Jonson  in  the 
fly-leaf.  Leigh  Hunt  relates  of  Lord  Byron,  that 
Montaigne  was  the  only  great  writer  of  past  times 
whom  he  read  with  avowed  satisfaction.  Other 
coincidences,  not  needful  to  be  mentioned  here, 
concurred  to  make  this  old  Gascon  still  new  and 
immortal  for  me. 


i68  IRcprescntatlve  Ibcn 

In  1 5  71,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  Montaigne, 
then  thirty-eight  years  old,  retired  from  the.  prac- 
tice of  law,  at  Bordeaux,  and  settled  himself  on  his 
estate.  Though  he  had  been  a  man  of  pleasure, 
and  sometimes  a  courtier,  his  studious  habits  now 
grew  on  him,  and  he  loved  the  compass,  staidness, 
and  independence,  of  the  country  gentleman's 
life.  He  took  up  his  economy  in  good  earnest, 
and  made  his  farms  yield  the  most.  Downright 
and  plain-dealing,  and  abhorring  to  be  deceived  or 
to  deceive,  he  was  esteemed  in  the  country  for  his 
sense  and  probity.  In  the  civil  wars  of  the 
League,  which  converted  every  house  into  a  fort, 
Montaigne  kept  his  gates  open,  and  his  house 
without  defence.  All  parties  freely  came  and 
went,  his  courage  and  honor  being  universally 
esteemed.  The  neighboring  lords  and  gentry 
brought  jewels  and  papers  to  him  for  safe-keep- 
ing. Gibbon  reckons,  in  these  bigoted  times,  but 
two  men  of  liberality  in  France,  —  Henry  IV. 
and  Montaigne. 

Montaigne  is  the  frankest  and  honestest  of  all 
writers.  His  French  freedom  runs  into  grossness  ; 
but  he  has  anticipated  all  censures  by  the  bounty 
of  his  own  confessions.  In  his  times,  books  were 
written  to  one  sex  only,  and  almost  all  were 
written  in  Latin  ;  so  that,  in  a  humorist,  a  certain 


/IRontaiQne ;  or»  tbe  Sfteptic  169 

nakedness  of  statement  was  permitted,  which  our 
manners,  of  a  literature  addressed  equally  to  both 
sexes,  do  not  allow.*  But,  though  a  biblical  plain- 
ness, coupled  with  a  most  uncanonical  levity,  may 
shut  his  pages  to  many  sensitive  readers,  yet  the 
offence  is  superficial.  He  parades  it :  he  makes 
the  most  of  it;  nobody  can  think  or  say  worse  of 
him  than  he  does.  He  pretends  to  most  of  the 
vices  ;  and,  if  there  be  any  virtue  in  him,  he  says, 
it  got  in  by  stealth.  There  is  no  man,  in  his 
opinion,  who  has  not  deserved  hanging  five  or  six 
times ;  and  he  pretends  no  exception  in  his  own 
behalf.  "Five  or  six  as  ridiculous  stories,"  too, 
he  says,  ''can  be  told  of  me,  as  of  any  man  liv- 
ing." But,  with  all  this  really  superfluous  frank- 
ness, the  opinion  of  an  invincible  probity  grows 
into  every  reader's  mind. 

"When  I  the  most  strictly  and  religiously  con- 
fess myself,  I  find  that  the  best  virtue  I  have  has 
in  it  some  tincture  of  vice;  and  I  am  afraid  that 
Plato,  in  his  purest  virtue  (I,  who  am  as  sincere 
and  perfect  a  lover  of  virtue  of  that  stamp  as  any 
other  whatever),  if  he  had  listened,  and  laid  hi§ 
ear  close  to  himself,  would  have  heard  some  jarring 
sound  of  human  mixture ;  but  faint  and  remote, 
and  only  to  be  perceived  by  himself." 

Here   is  an  impatience  and   fastidiousness  at 


I70  IRcprcscntative  fl^en 

color  or  pretence  of  any  kind.  He  has  been  in 
courts  so  long  as  to  have  conceived  a  furious  dis- 
gust at  appearances  ;  he  will  .indulge  himself  with 
a  little  cursing  and  swearing ;  he  will  talk  with 
sailors  and  gipsies,  use  flash  and  street  ballads  :  he 
has  stayed  in-doors  till  he  is  deadly  sick  :  he  will 
to  the  open  air,  though  it  rain  bullets.  He  has 
seen  too  much  of  gentlemen  of  the  long  robe, 
until  he  wishes  for  cannibals;  and  is  so  nervous, 
by  factitious  life,  that  he  thinks,  the  more  bar- 
barous man  is,  the  better  he  is.  He  likes  his 
saddle.  You  may  read  theology,  and  grammar, 
and  metaphysics  elsewhere.  Whatever  you  get 
here,  shall  smack  of  the  earth  and  of  real  life, 
sweet,  or  smart,  or  stinging.  He  makes  no 
hesitation  to  entertain  you  with  the  records  of  his 
disease ;  and  his  journey  to  Italy  is  quite  full  of 
that  matter.  He  took  and  kept  this  position  of 
equilibrium.  Over  his  name,  he  drew  an  emble- 
matic pair  of  scales,  and  wrote  Que  scais  je  ? 
under  it.  As  I  look  at  his  effigy  opposite  the  title- 
page,  I  seem  to  hear  him  say,  *^  You  may  play  old 
Poz,  if  you  will ;  you  may  rail  and  exaggerate, — 
I  stand  here  for  truth,  and  will  not,  for  all  the 
states,  and  churches,  and  revenues,  and  personal 
reputations  of  Europe,  overstate  the  dry  fact,  as  I 
see  it  j  I  will  rather  mumble  and  prose  about  what 


/Ebontaiane;  or,  tbe  Sceptic  17^ 

I  certainly  know, — my  house  and  barns;  my 
father,  my  wife,  and  my  tenants;  my  old  lean 
bald  pate ;  my  knives  and  forks ;  what  meats  I 
eat,  and  what  drinks  I  prefer ;  and  a  hundred 
straws  just  as  ridiculous,  —  than  I  will  write,  with 
a  fine  crow-quill,  a  fine  romance.  I  like  gray 
days,  and  autumn  and  winter  weather.  I  am  gray 
and  autumnal  myself,  and  think  an  undress,  and 
old  shoes  that  do  not  pinch  my  feet,  and  old 
friends  who  do  not  constrain  me,  and  plain  topics 
where  I  do  not  need  to  strain  myself  and  pump 
my  brains,  the  most  suitable.  Our  condition  as 
men  is  risky  and  ticklish  enough.  One  can  not 
be  sure  of  himself  and  his  fortune  an  hour,  but  he 
ma:y  be  whisked  off  into  some  pitiable  or  ridicu- 
lous plight.  Why  should  I  vapor  and  play  the 
philosopher,  instead  of  ballasting,  the  best  I  can, 
this  dancing  balloon  ?  So,  at  least,  I  live  within 
compass,  keep  myself  ready  for  action,  and  can 
shoot  the  gulf,  at  last,  with  decency.  If  there 
be  any  thing  farcical  in  such  a  life,  the  blame  is 
not  mine  :  let  it  lie  at  fate's  and  nature's  door." 
The  Essays,  therefore,  are  an  entertaining 
soliloquy  on  every  random  topic  that  comes  into 
his  head ;  treating  every  thing  without  ceremony, 
yet  with  masculine  sense.  There  have  been  men 
with  deeper  insight ;  but,  one  would   say,  never 


172  IRcpresentatlve  /Bben 

a  man  with  such  abundance  of  thoughts :  he  is 
never  dull,  never  insincere,  and  has  the  genius  to 
make  the  reader  care  for  all  that  he  cares  for. 

The  sincerity  and  marrow  of  the  man  reaches 
to  his  sentences.  I  know  not  any  where  the 
book  that  seems  less  written.  It  is  the  language 
of  conversation  transferred  to  a  book.  Cut  these 
words,  and  they  would  bleed  :  they  are  vascular 
and  alive.  One  has  the  same  pleasure  in  it  that 
we  have  in  listening  to  the  necessary  speech  of 
men  about  their  work,  when  any  unusual  circum- 
stance gives  momentary  importance  to  the  dia- 
logue. For  blacksmiths  and  teamsters  do  not 
trip  in  their  speech  ;  it  is  a  shower  of  bullets.  It 
is  Cambridge  men  who  correct  themselves,  and 
begin  again  at  every  half  sentence,  and,  more- 
over, will  pun,  and  refine  too  much,  and  swerve 
from  the  matter  to  the  expression.  Montaigne 
talks  with  shrewdness,  knows  the  world,  and 
books,  and  himself,  and  uses  the  positive  degree  : 
never  shrieks,  or  protests,  or  prays  :  no  weakness, 
no  convulsion,  no  superlative ;  does  not  wish  to 
jump  out  of  his  skin,  or  play  any  antics,  or  anni- 
hilate space  or  time ;  but  is  stout  and  solid ; 
tastes  every  moment  of  the  day ;  likes  pain, 
because  it  makes  him  feel  himself,  and  realize 
things ;  as  we  pinch  ourselves  to  know  that  we 


/Rontalgnc;  or,  tbc  Sfteptlc  173 

are  awake.  He  keeps  the  plain  ;  he  rarely  mounts 
or  smks ;  likes  to  feel  solid  ground,  and  the 
stones  underneath.  His  writing  has  no  enthu- 
siasms, no  aspiration  ;  contented,  self-respecting, 
and  keeping  the  middle  of  the  road.  There  is 
but  one  exception, — in  his  love  for  Socrates.  In 
speaking  of  him,  for  once  his  cheek  flushes,  and 
his  style  rises  to  passion. 

Montaigne  died  of  a  quinsy,  at  the  age  of  sixty, 
in  1592.  When  he  came  to  die,  he  caused  the 
mass  to  be  celebrated  in  his  chamber.  At  the 
age  of  thirty-three,  he  had  been  married.  '^  But,'* 
he  says,  ''  might  I  have  had  my  own  will,  I  would 
not  have  married  Wisdom  herself,  if  she  would 
have  had  me :  but  'tis  to  much  purpose  to 
evade  it,  the  common  custom  and  use  of  life  will 
have  it  so.  Most  of  my  actions  are  guided  by 
example,  not  choice."  In  the  hour  of  death  he 
gave  the  same  weight  to  custom.  Que  scats  je  ? 
What  do  I  know. 

This  book  of  Montaigne  the  world  has  endorsed, 
by  translating  it  into  all  tongues,  and  printing 
seventy-five  editions  of  it  in  Europe  :  and  that, 
too,  a  circulation  somewhat  chosen,  namely, 
among  courtiers,  soldiers,  princes,  men  of  the 
world,  and  men  of  wit  and  generosity. 


174  IReprescntative  /fccn 

Shall  we  say  that  Montaigne  has  spoken  wisely, 
and  given  the  right  and  permanent  expression  of 
the  human  mind,  on  the  conduct  of  life  ? 

We  are  natural  believers.  Truth,  or  the  con- 
nection between  cause  and  effect,  alone  interests 
us.  We  are  persuaded  that  a  thread  runs  through 
all  things  :  all  worlds  are  strung  on  it,  as  beads  : 
and  men,  and  events,  and  life,  come  to  us,  only 
because  of  that  thread  :  they  pass  and  repass,  only 
that  we  may  know  the  direction  and  continuity  of 
that  line.  A  book  or  statement  which  goes  to 
show  that  there  is  no  line,  but  random  and  chaos, 
a  calamity  out  of  nothing,  a  prosperity  and  no  ac- 
count of  it,  a  hero  born  from  a  fool,  a  fool  from  a 
hero, — dispirits  us.  Seen  or  unseen,  we  believe 
the  tie  exists.  Talent  makes  counterfeit  ties; 
genius  finds  the  real  ones.  We  hearken  to  the 
man  of  science,  because  we  anticipate  the  sequence 
in  natural  phenomena  which  he  uncovers.  We 
love  whatever  affirms,  connects,  preserves  ;  and 
dislike  what  scatters  or  pulls  down.  One  man  ap- 
pears whose  nature  is  to  all  men's  eyes  conserving 
and  constructive :  his  presence  supposes  a  well- 
ordered  society,  agriculture,  trade,  large  institu- 
tions, and  empire.  If  these  did  not  exist,  they 
would    begin    to    exist    through  his    endeavors. 


jfllbontaiflue;  or,  tbe  Sftcptic  175 

Therefore,  he  cheers  and  comforts  men,  who  feel 
all  this  in  him  very  readily.  The  nonconformist 
and  the  rebel  say  all  manner  of  unanswerable 
things  against  the  existing  republic,  but  discover 
to  our  sense  no  plan  of  house  or  state  of  their 
own.  Therefore,  though  the  town,  and  state, 
and  way  of  living,  which  our  counsellor  contem- 
plated, might  be  a  very  modest  or  musty  pros- 
perity, yet  men  rightly  go  for  him,  and  reject 
the  reformer,  so  long  as  he  comes  only  with  axe 
and  crowbar. 

But  though  we  are  natural  conservers  and 
causationists,  and  reject  a  sour,  dumpish  unbe- 
lief, the  skeptical  class,  which  Montaigne  repre- 
sents, have  reason,  and  every  man,  at  some  time, 
belongs  to  it.  Every  superior  mind  will  pass 
through  this  domain  of  equilibration, — I  should 
rather  say,  will  know  how  to  avail  himself  of 
the  checks  and  balances  in  nature,  as  a  natural 
weapon  against  the  exaggeration  and  formalism 
of  bigots  and  blockheads. 

Skepticism  is  the  attitude  assumed  by  the 
student  in  relation  to  the  particulars  which  society 
adores,  but  which  he  sees  to  be  reverend  only  in 
their  tendency  and  spirit.  The  ground  occupied 
by  the  skeptic  is  the  vestibule  of  the  temple.  So- 
ciety does  not  like  to  have  any  breath  of  question 


176  *Rcprc0cntatfvc  Ifbcn 

blown  on  the  existing  order.  But  the  interrogation 
of  custom  at  all  points  is  an  inevitable  stage  in  the 
growth  of  every  superior  mind,  and  is  the  evidence 
of  its  perception  of  the  flowing  power  which  re- 
mains itself  in  all  changes. 

The  superior  mind  will  find  itself  equally  at  odds 
with  the  evils  of  society,  and  with  the  projects  that 
are  offered  to  relieve  them.  The  wise  skeptic  is  a 
bad  citizen ;  no  conservative ;  he  sees  the  selfish- 
ness of  property,  and  the  drowsiness  of  institutions. 
But  neither  is  he  fit  to  work  with  any  democratic 
party  that  ever  was  constituted ;  for  parties  wish 
every  one  committed,  and  he  penetrates  the  popu- 
lar patriotism.  His  politicsare  those  of  the  ''Soul's 
Errand"  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh;  or  of  Krishna, 
in  the  Bhagavat,  ''There  is  none  who  is  worthy 
of  my  love  or  hatred;"  while  he  sentences  law, 
physic,  divinity,  commerce,  and  custom.  He  is 
a  reformer :  yet  he  is  no  better  member  of  the 
philanthropic  association.  It  turns  out  that  he 
is  not  the  champion  of  the  operative,  the  pau- 
per, the  prisoner,  the  slave.  It  stands  in  his  mind, 
that  our  life  in  this  world  is  not  of  quite  so  easy 
interpretation  as  churches  and  school-books 
say.  He  does  not  wish  to  take  ground  against 
these  benevolences,  to  play  the  part  of  devil's 
attorney,  and  blazon  every  doubt  and  sneer  that 


Montaigne;  or,  tbe  Sfteptfc  177 

darkens  the  sun  for  him.  But  he  says,  There 
are  doubts. 

I  mean  to  use  the  occasion,  and  celebrate  the 
calendar-day  of  our  Saint  Michel  de  Montaigne, 
by  counting  and  describing  these  doubts  or  nega- 
tions. I  wish  to  ferret  them  out  of  their  holes, 
and  sun  them  a  Httle.  We  must  do  with  them  as 
the  police  do  with  old  rogues,  who  are  shown  up 
to  the  public  at  the  marshal's  office.  They  will 
never  be  so  formidable,  when  once  they  have 
been  identified  and  registered.  But  I  mean  hon- 
estly by  them, — that  justice  shall  be  done  to  their 
terrors.  I  shall  not  take  Sunday  objections,  made 
up  on  purpose  to  be  put  down.  I  shall  take  the 
worst  I  can  find,  whether  I  can  dispose  of  them, 
or  they  of  me. 

I  do  not  press  the  skepticism  of  the  materialist. 
I  know,  the  quadruped  opinion  will  not  prevail. 
'Tis  of  no  importance  what  bats  and  oxen  think. 
The  first  dangerous  symptom  I  report,  is,  the 
levity  of  intellect ;  as  if  it  were  fatal  to  earnest- 
ness to  know  much.  Knowledge  is  the  knowing 
that  we  can  not  know.  The  dull  pray ;  the 
geniuses  are  light  mockers.  How  respectable  is 
earnestness  on  every  platform  !  but  intellect  kills 
it.  Nay,  San  Carlo,  my  subtle  and  admirable 
friend,  one  of  the  most  penetrating  of  men,  finds 


1 78  'Representative  Aen 

that  all  direct  ascension,  even  of  lofty  piety,  leads 
to  this  ghastly  insight,  and  sends  back  the  votary 
orphaned.  My  astonishing  San  Carlo  thought 
the  lawgivers  and  saints  infected.  They  found  the 
ark  empty ;  saw,  and  would  not  tell ;  and  tried 
to  choke  off  their  approaching  followers,  by  saying, 
*' Action,  action,  my  dear  fellows,  is  for  you!" 
Bad  as  was  to  me  this  detection  by  San  Carlo, 
this  frost  in  July,  this  blow  from  a  brick,  there 
was  still  a  worse,  namely,  the  cloy  or  satiety  of 
the  saints.  In  the  mount  of  vision,  ere  they  have 
yet  risen  from  their  knees,  they  say,  *'  We  discover 
that  this  our  homage  and  beatitude  is  partial  and 
deformed ;  we  must  fly  for  relief  to  the  suspected 
and  reviled  Intellect,  to  the  Understanding,  the 
Mephistopheles,  to  the  gymnastics  of  talent." 

This  is  hobgoblin  the  first ;  and,  though  it 
has  been  the  subject  of  much  elegy,  in  our  nine- 
teenth century,  from  Byron,  Goethe,  and  other 
poets  of  less  fame,  not  to  mention  many  distin- 
guished private  observers, — I  confess  it  is  not  very 
affecting  to  my  imagination  ;  for  it  seems  to  con- 
cern the  shattering  of  baby-houses  and  crockery- 
shops.  What  flutters  the  church  of  Rome,  or  of 
England,  or  of  Geneva,  or  of  Boston,  may  yet 
be  very  far  from  touching  any  principle  of  faith. 
I  think  that  the  intellect  and  moral  sentiment  are 


/RontafQtte;  or,  tbe  Sfteptlc  179 

unanimous ;  and  that,  though  philosophy  extir- 
pates bugbears,  yet  it  supplies  the  natural  checks 
of  vice,  and  polarity  to  the  soul.  I  think  that  the 
wiser  a  man  is,  the  more  stupendous  he  finds  the 
natural  and  moral  economy,  and  lifts  himself  to  a 
more  absolute  reliance. 

There  is  the  power  of  moods,  each  setting  at 
nought  all  but  its  own  tissue  of  facts  and  beliefs. 
There  is  the  power  of  complexions,  obviously 
modifying  the  dispositions  and  sentiments.  The 
beliefs  and  unbeliefs  appear  to  be  structural ;  and, 
as  soon  as  each  man  attains  the  poise  and  vivacity 
which  allow  the  whole  machinery  to  play,  he  will 
not  need  extreme  examples,  but  will  rapidly  alter- 
nate all  opinions  in  his  own  life.  Our  life  is 
March  weather,  savage  and  serene  in  one  hour. 
We  go  forth  austere,  dedicated,  believing  in  the 
iron  links  of  Destiny,  and  will  not  turn  on 
our  heel  to  save  our  life  :  but  a  book,  or  a  bust, 
or  only  the  sound  of  a  name,  shoots  a  spark 
through  the  nerves,  and  we  suddenly  believe  in 
will :  my  finger-ring  shall  be  the  seal  of  Solomon : 
fate  is  for  imbeciles :  all  is  possible  to  the  resolved 
mind.  Presently,  a  new  experience  gives  a  new 
turn  to  our  thoughts:  common  sense  resumes  its 
tyranny:  we  say,  ''Well,  the  army,  after  all,  is  the 
gate   to  fame,  manners,  and   poetry:    and,  look 


i8o  •Repreacntatipe  Obcn 

you, — on  the  whole,  selfishness  plants  best,  prunes 
best,  makes  the  best  commerce,  and  the  best  citi- 
zen." Are  the  opinions  of  a  man  on  right  and 
wrong,  on  fate  and  causation,  at  the  mercy  of  a 
broken  sleep  or  an  indigestion?  Is  his  belief  in 
God  and  Duty  no  deeper  than  a  stomach  evidence? 
And  what  guaranty  for  the  permanence  of  his 
opinions?  I  like  not  the  French  celerity, — a  new 
church  and  state  once  a  week. — This  is  the  second 
negation ;  and  I  shall  let  it  pass  for  what  it  will. 
As  far  as  it  asserts  rotation  of  states  of  mind,  I 
suppose  it  suggests  its  own  remedy,  namely,  in  the 
record  of  larger  periods.  What  is  the  mean  of 
many  states;  of  all  the  states?  Does  the  general 
voice  of  ages  affirm  any  principle,  or  is  no  com- 
munity of  sentiment  discoverable  in  distant  times 
and  places  ?  And  when  it  shows  the  power  of 
self-interest,  I  accept  that  as  a  part  of  the  divine 
law,  and  must  reconcile  it  with  aspiration  the  best 
I  can. 

The  word  Fate,  or  Destiny,  expresses  the  sense 
of  mankind,  in  all  ages, — that  the  laws  of  the 
world  do  not  always  befriend,  but  often  hurt  and 
crush  us.  Fate,  in  the  shape  of  Kinde  or  nature, 
grows  over  us  like  grass.  We  paint  Time  with  a 
scythe;  Love  and  Fortune,  blind;  and  Destiny, 
deaf.     We   have   too   little    power  of   resistance 


^ontaffluc ;  or,  tbe  Sftcptic  iSi 

against  this  ferocity  which  champs  us  up.  What 
front  can  we  make  against  these  unavoidable,  vic- 
torious, maleficent  forces?  What  can  I  do  against 
the  influence  of  Race,  in  my  history?  What  can 
I  do  against  hereditary  and  constitutional  habits, 
against  scrofula,  lymph,  impotence?  against 
climate,  against  barbarism,  in  my  country?  I  can 
reason  down  or  deny  every  thing,  except  this  per- 
petual Belly:  feed  he  must  and  will,  and  I  cannot 
make  him  respectable. 

But  the  main  resistance  which  the  affirmative 
impulse  finds,  and  one  including  all  others,  is  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Illusionists.  There  is  a  painful 
rumor  in  circulation,  that  we  have  been  practised 
upon  in  all  the  principal  performances  of  life,  and 
free  agency  is  the  emptiest  name.  We  have  been 
sopped  and  drugged  with  the  air,  with  food,  with 
woman,  with  children,  with  sciences,  with  events, 
which  leave  us  exactly  where  they  found  us.  The 
mathematics,  'tis  complained,  leave  the  mind 
where  they  find  it :  so  do  all  sciences ;  and  so  do 
all  events  and  actions.  I  find  a  man  who  has 
passed  through  all  the  sciences,  the  churl  he  was ; 
and,  through  all  the  offices,  learned,  civil,  and 
social,  can  detect  the  child.  We  are  not  the  less 
necessitated  to  dedicate  life  to  them.     In  fact,  we 


i82  •Representative  /Ren 

jnay  come  to  accept  it  as  the  fixed  rule  and  theory 
of  our  state  of  education,  that  God  is  a  substance, 
and  his  method  is  illusion.  The  eastern  sages 
owned  the  goddess  Yoganidra,  the  great  illusory- 
energy  of  Vishnu,  by  whom,  as  utter  ignorance, 
the  whole  world  is  beguiled. 

Or,  shall  I  state  it  thus? — The  astonishment  of 
life,  is,  the  absence  of  any  appearance  of  recon- 
ciliation between  the  theory  and  practice  of  life. 
Reason,  the  prized  reality,  the  Law,  is  appre- 
hended, now  and  then,  for  a  serene  and  profound 
moment,  amidst  the  hubbub  of  cares  and  works 
which  have  no  direct  bearing  on  it; — is  then  lost, 
for  months  or  years,  and  again  found,  for  an  in- 
terval, to  be  lost  again.  If  we  compute  it  in  time, 
we  may,  in  fifty  years,  have  half  a  dozen  reasona- 
ble hours.  But  what  are  these  cares  and  works 
the  better  ?  A  method  in  the  world  we  do  not 
see,  but  this  parellelism  of  great  and  little,  which 
never  react  on  each  other,  nor  discover  the  small- 
est tendency  to  converge.  Experiences,  fortunes, 
governings,  readings,  writings  are  nothing  to  the 
purpose;  as  when  a  man  comes  into  the  room,  it 
does  not  appear  whether  he  has  been  fed  on  yams 
or  buffalo, — he  has  contrived  to  get  so  much  bone 
and  fibre  as  he  wants,  out  of  rice  or  out  of  snow. 
So  vast   is   the  disproportion  between  the  sky  of 


^ontaiflnc;  or,  tbc  Sfteptlc  183 

law  and  the  pismire  of  performance  under  it,  that, 
whether  he  is  a  man  of  worth  or  a  sot,  is  not  so 
great  a  matter  as  we  say.  Shall  I  add,  as  one 
juggle  of  this  enchantment,  the  stunning  non- 
intercourse  law  which  makes  cooperation  impossi- 
ble ?  The  young  spirit  pants  to  enter  society. 
But  all  the  ways  of  culture  and  greatness  lead  to 
solitary  imprisonment.  He  has  been  often 
baulked.  He  did  not  expect  a  sympathy  with  his 
thought  from  the  village,  but  he  went  with  it  to 
the  chosen  and  intelligent,  and  found  no  enter- 
tainment for  it,  but  mere  misapprehension,  dis- 
taste, and  scoffing.  Men  are  strangely  mistimed 
and  misapplied  ;  and  .  the  excellence  of  each  is 
an  inflamed  individualism  which  separates  him 
more. 

There  are  these,  and  more  than  these  diseases  of 
thought,  which  our  ordinary  teachers  do  not  at- 
tempt to  remove.  Now  shall  we,  because  a  good 
nature  inclines  us  to  virtue's  side,  say.  There  are 
no  doubts, — and  lie  for  the  right  ?  Is  life  to  be 
led  in  a  brave  or  in  a  cowardly  manner  ?  and  is 
not  the  satisfaction  of  the  doubts  essential  to  all 
manliness  ?  Is  the  name  of  virtue  to  be  a  barrier 
to  that  which  is  virtue?  Can  you  not  believe 
that  a  man  of  earnest  and  burly  habit  may  find 
small  good  in  tea,  essays,  and  catechism,  and  want 


i84  IRcprceentativc  Itscn 

a  rougher  instruction,  want  men,  labor,  trade, 
farming,  war,  hunger,  plenty,  love,  hatred,  doubt, 
and  terror,  to  make  things  plain  to  him ;  and  has 
he  not  a  right  to  insist  on  being  convinced  in  his 
own  way?  When  he  is  convinced,  he  will  be 
worth  the  pains. 

Belief  consists  in  accepting  the  affirmations  of 
the  soul;  unbelief,  in  denying  them.  Some 
minds  are  incapable  of  skepticism.  The  doubts 
they  profess  to  entertain  are  rather  a  civility  or 
accomodation  to  the  common  discourse  of  their 
company.  They  may  well  give  themselves  leave 
to  speculate,  for  they  are  secure  of  a  return.  Once 
admitted  to  the  heaven  of  thought,  they  see  no 
relapse  into  night,  but  infinite  invitation  on  the 
other  side.  Heaven  is  within  heaven,  and  sky 
over  sky,  and  they  are  encompassed  with  divini- 
ties. Others  there  are,  to  whom  the  heaven  is 
brass,  and  it  shuts  down  to  the  surface  of  the 
earth.  It  is  a  question  of  temperament,  or  of  more 
or  less  immersion  in  nature.  The  last  class  must 
needs  have  a  reflex  or  parasite  faith ;  not  a  sight 
of  realities,  but  an  instinctive  reliance  on  the  seers 
and  believers  of  realities.  The  manners  and 
thoughts  of  believers  astonish  them,  and  convince 
them  that  these  have  seen  something  which  is  hid 
from  themselves.     But  their  sensual  habit  would 


^ontafsne;  or,  tbe  SRcptfc  185 

fix  the  believer  to  his  last  position,  whilst  he  as 
Inevitably  advances  ;  and  presently  the  unbeliever, 
for  love  of  belief,  burns  the  believer. 

Great  believers  are  always  reckoned  infidels, 
impracticable,  fantastic,  atheistic,  and  really  men 
of  no  account.  The  spiritualist  finds  himself 
driven  to  express  his  faith  by  a  series  of  skepti- 
cisms. Charitable  souls  come  with  their  projects, 
and  ask  his  cooperation.  How  can  he  hesitate? 
It  is  the  rule  of  mere  comity  and  courtesy  to 
agree  where  you  can,  and  to  turn  your  sentence 
with  something  auspicious,  and  not  freezing  and 
sinister.  But  he  is  forced  to  say,  ''  O,  these  things 
will  be  as  they  must  be :  what  can  you  do  ? 
These  particular  griefs  and  crimes  are  the  foliage 
and  fruit  of  such  trees  as  we  see  growing.  It  is 
vain  to  complain  of  the  leaf  or  the  berry :  cut  it 
off;  it  will  bear  another  just  as  bad.  You  must 
begin  your  cure  lower  down."  The  generosities 
of  the  day  prove  an  intractable  element  for  him. 
The  people's  questions  are  not  his  ;  their  methods 
are  not  his ;  and,  against  all  the  dictates  of  good 
nature,  he  is  driven  to  say,  he  has  no  pleasure  in 
them. 

Even  the  doctrines  dear  to  the  hope  of  man, 
of  the  divine  Providence,  and  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  his  neighbors  cannot  put  the  statement 


i86  "Rcprcecntative  fbcn 

so  that  he  shall  affirm  it.  But  he  denies  out  of 
more  faith,  and  not  less.  He  denies  out  of  hon- 
esty. He  had  rather  stand  charged  with  the 
imbecility  of  skepticism,  than  with  untruth.  I 
believe,  he  says,  in  the  moral  design  of  the  uni- 
verse; it  exists  hospitably  for  the  weal  of  souls; 
but  your  dogmas  seem  to  me  caricatures :  why 
should  I  make  believe  them  ?  Will  any  say,  this 
is  cold  and  infidel  ?  The  wise  and  magnanimous 
will  not  say  so.  They  will  exult  m  his  far-sighted 
good-will,  that  can  abandon  to  the  adversary  all 
the  ground  of  tradition  and  common  belief,  with- 
out losing  a  jot  of  strength.  It  sees  to  the  end 
of  all  transgression.  George  Fox  saw  "  that  there 
was  an  ocean  of  darkness  and  death  ;  but  withal, 
an  infinite  ocean  of  light  and  love  which  flowed 
over  that  of  darkness." 

The  final  solution  in  which  skepticism  is  lost 
is  in  the  moral  sentiment,  which  never  forfeits 
its  supremacy.  All  moods  may  be  safely  tried, 
and  their  weight  allowed  to  all  objections:  the 
moral  sentiment  as  easily  outweighs  them  all,  as 
any  one.  This  is  the  drop  which  balances  the 
sea.  I  play  with  the  miscellany  of  facts,  and 
take  those  superficial  views  which  we  call  skepti- 
cism ;  but  I  know  that  they  will  presently 
appear  to  me  in  that  order  which  makes  skepti- 


^ontaiflne;  or,  tbe  Sfteptfc  187 

cism  impossible.  A  man  of  thought  must  feel 
the  thought  that  is  parent  of  the  universe :  that 
the  masses  of  nature  do  undulate  and  flow. 

This  faith  avails  to  the  whole  emergency  of 
life  and  objects.  The  world  is  saturated  with 
deity  and  with  law.  He  is  content  with  just 
and  unjust,  with  sots  and  fools,  with  the  triumph 
of  folly  and  fraud.  He  can  behold  with  serenity 
the  yawning  gulf  between  the  ambition  of  man 
and  his  power  of  performance,  between  the 
demand  and  supply  of  power,  which  makes  the 
tragedy  of  all  souls. 

Charles  Fourier  announced  that  '^  the  attrac- 
tions of  man  are  proportioned  to  his  destinies;" 
in  other  words,  that  every  desire  predicts  its  own 
satisfaction.  Yet,  all  experience  exhibits  the  re- 
verse of  this ;  the  incompetency  of  power  is  the 
universal  grief  of  young  and  ardent  minds.  They 
accuse  the  divine  providence  of  a  certain  parsi- 
mony. It  has  shown  the  heaven  and  earth  to 
every  child,  and  filled  him  with  a  desire  for  the 
whole  ;  a  desire  raging,  infinite ;  a  hunger,  as  of 
space  to  be  filled  with  planets ;  a  cry  of  famine, 
as  of  devils  for  souls.  Then  for  the  satisfaction, 
— to  each  man  is  administered  a  single  drop^  a 
bead  of  dew  of  vital  \>o\\tr  perday, — a  cup  as 
large  as  space,  and  one  drop  of  the  water  of  life 


i88  •Representative  ^en 

in  it.  Each  man  woke  in  the  morning,  with  an 
appetite  that  could  eat  the  solar  system  like  a  cake  ; 
a  spirit  for  action  and  passion  without  bounds;  he 
could  lay  his  hand  on  the  morning  star  :  he  could 
try  conclusions  with  gravitation  or  chemistry ; 
but,  on  the  first  motion  to  prove  his  strength — 
hands,  feet,  senses,  gave  way,  and  would  not  serve 
him.  He  was  an  emperor  deserted  by  his  states, 
and  left  to  whistle  by  himself,  or  thrust  into  a  mob 
of  emperors,  all  whistling ;  and  still  the  sirens 
sang,  ''The  attractions  are  proportioned  to  the 
destinies."  In  every  house,  in  the  heart  of  each 
maiden,  and  of  each  boy,  in  the  soul  of  the  soar- 
ing saint,  this  chasm  is  found, — between  the  larg- 
est promise  of  ideal  power,  and  the  shabby  expe- 
rience. 

The  expansive  nature  of  truth  comes  to  our  suc- 
cor, elastic,  not  to  be  surrounded.  Man  helps 
himself  by  larger  generalizations.  The  lesson  of 
life  is  practically  to  generalize ;  to  believe  what 
the  years  and  the  centuries  say  against  the  hours; 
to  resist  the  usurpation  of  particulars ;  to  pene- 
trate to  their  catholic  sense.  Things  seem  to  say 
one  thing,  and  say  the  reverse.  The  appearance 
is  immoral ;  the  result  is  moral.  Things  seem  to 
tend  downward,  to  justify  despondency,  to  pro- 
mote rogues,  to  defeat  the  just  ;  and,  by  knaves. 


/ISontafgne;  or,  tbe  Sfteptic  189 

as  by  martyrs,  the  just  cause  is  carried  forward. 
Although  knaves  win  in  every  political  struggle, 
although  society  seems  to  be  delivered  over  from 
the  hands  of  one  set  of  criminals  into  the  hands 
of  another  set  of  criminals,  as  fast  as  the  govern- 
ment is  changed,  and  the  march  of  civilization  is 
a  train  of  felonies,  yet,  general  ends  are  somehow- 
answered.  We  see,  now,  events  forced  on,  which 
seem  to  retard  or  retrograde  the  civility  of  ages. 
But  the  world-spirit  is  a  good  swimmer,  and 
storms  and  waves  cannot  drown  him.  He  snaps 
his  finger  at  laws:  and  so,  throughout  history, 
heaven  seems  to  affect  low  and  poor  means. 
Through  the  years  and  the  centuries,  through  evil 
agents,  through  toys  and  atoms,  a  great  and  benef- 
icent tendency  irresistibly  streams. 

Let  a  man  learn  to  look  for  the  permanent  in 
the  mutable  and  fleeting  ;  let  him  learn  to  bear 
the  disappearance  of  things  he  was  wont  to  rever- 
ence, without  losing  his  reverence ;  let  him  learn 
that  he  is  here,  not  to  work,  but  to  be  worked 
upon;  and  that,  though  abyss  open  under  abyss, 
and  opinion  displace  opinion,  all  are  at  last  con- 
tained in  the  Eternal  cause. — 

"If  my  bark  sink,  'tis  to  another  sea." 
13 


SHAKSPEARE: 

OR, 

THE   POET. 


V. 
SHAKSPEARE;  OR,  THE  POET. 


Great  men  are  more  distinguished  by  range 
and  extent,  than  by  originality.  If  we  require  the 
originality  which  consists  in  weaving,  like  a  spider, 
their  web  from  their  own  bowels  ;  in  finding  clay, 
and  making  bricks,  and  building  the  house ;  no 
great  men  are  original.  Nor  does  valuable  origin- 
ality consist  in  unlikeness  to  other  men.  The 
hero  is  in  the  press  of  knights,  and  the  thick  of 
events ;  and,  seeing  what  men  want,  and  sharing 
their  desire,  he  adds  the  needful  length  of  sight 
and  of  arm,  to  come  at  the  desired  point.  The 
greatest  genius  is  the  most  indebted  man.  A  poet 
is  no  rattlebrain,  saying  what  comes  uppermost, 
and,  because  he  says  every  thing,  saying,  at  last, 
something  good ;  but  a  heart  in  unison  with  his 
time  and  country.  There  is  nothing  whimsical 
and  fantastic  in  his  production,  but  sweet  and  sad 
193 


194  IReprcacntattve  Oscn 

earnest,  freighted  with  the  weightiest  convictions, 
and  pointed  with  the  most  determined  aim  which 
any  man  or  class  knows  of  in  his  times. 

The  Genius  of  our  life  is  jealous  of  individuals, 
and  will  not  have  any  individual  great,  except 
through  the  general.  There  is  no  choice  to 
genius.  A  great  man  does  not  wake  up  on  some 
fine  morning,  and  say,  '^  I  am  full  of  life,  I  will  go 
to  sea,  and  find  an  Anarctic  continent :  to-day  I 
will  square  the  circle :  I  will  ransack  botany,  and 
find  a  new  food  for  man :  I  have  a  new  architect- 
ure in  my  mind:  I  foresee  a  new  mechanic 
power;"  no,  but  he  finds  himself  in  the  river  of 
the  thoughts  and  events,  forced  onward  by  the 
ideas  and  necessities  of  his  contemporaries.  He 
stands  where  all  the  eyes  of  men  look  one  way, 
and  their  hands  all  point  in  the  direction  in  which 
he  should  go.  The  church  has  reared  him  amidst 
rites  and  pomps,  and  he  carries  out  the  advice 
which  her  music  gave  him,  and  builds  a  cathedral 
needed  by  her  chants  and  processions.  He  finds 
a  war  raging:  it  educates  him  by  trumpet,  in 
barracks,  and  he  betters  the  instruction.  He  finds 
two  counties  groping  to  bring  coal,  or  flour,  or 
fish,  from  the  place  of  production  to  the  place  of 
consumption,  and  he  hits  on  a  railroad.  Every 
master  has  found  his  materials  collected,  and  his 


Sbaftspeare;  or,  tbe  poet  19s 

power  lay  in  his  sympathy  with  his  people,  and 
in  his  love  of  the  materials  he  wrought  in.  What 
an  economy  of  power !  and  what  a  compensation 
for  the  shortness  of  life  !  All  is  done  to  his  hand. 
The  world  has  brought  him  thus  far  on  his  way. 
The  human  race  has  gone  out  before  him,  sunk 
the  hills,  filled  the  hollows,  and  bridged  the  riv- 
ers. Men,  nations,  poets,  artisans,  women,  all 
have  worked  for  him,  and  he  enters  into  their 
labors.  Choose  any  other  thing,  out  of  the  line 
of  tendency,  out  of  the  national  feeling  and  his- 
tory, and  he  would  have  all  to  do  for  himself:  his 
powers  would  be  expended  in  the  first  preparations. 
Great  genial  power,  one  would  almost  say,  con- 
sists in  not  being  original  at  all ;  in  being  alto- 
gether receptive  ;  in  letting  the  world  do  all,  and 
suffering  the  spirit  of  the  hour  to  pass  unobstructed 
through  the  mind. 

Shakspeare's  youth  fell  in  a  time  when  the 
English  people  were  importunate  for  dramatic 
entertainments.  The  court  took  offence  easily 
at  political  allusions,  and  attempted  to  suppress 
them.  The  Puritans,  a  growing  and  energetic 
party,  and  the  religious  among  the  Anglican 
church,  would  suppress  them.  But  the  people 
wanted  them.  Inn-yards,  houses  without  roofs, 
and  extemporaneous  enclosures  at  country  fairs, 


196  "Keprcsentative  /ftcn 

were  the  ready  theatres  of  strolling  players. 
The  people  had  tasted  this  new  joy ;  and,  as  we 
could  not  hope  to  suppress  newspapers  now, — no. 
Dot  by  the  strongest  party, — neither  then  could 
king,  prelate,  or  puritan,  alone  or  united,  suppress 
an  organ,  which  was  ballad,  epic,  newspaper, 
caucus,  lecture,  punch,  and  library,  at  the  same 
time.  Probably  king,  prelate,  and  puritan,  all 
found  their  own  account  in  it.  It  had  become, 
by  all  causes,  a  national  interest, — by  no  means 
conspicuous,  so  that  some  great  scholar  would 
have  thought  of  treating  it  in  an  English  history, 
— but  not  a  whit  less  considerable,  because  it  was 
cheap,  and  of  no  acccount,  like  a  baker' s-shop. 
The  best  proof  of  its  vitality  is  the  crowd  of 
writers  which  suddenly  broke  into  this  field  ;  Kyd, 
Marlow,  Greene,  Jonson,  Chapman,  Dekker, 
Webster,  Heywood,  Middleton,  Peele,  Ford, 
Massinger,  Beaumont,  and  Fletcher. 

The  secure  possession,  by  the  stage,  of  the 
public  mind,  is  of  the  first  importance  to  the  poet 
who  works  for  it.  He  loses  no  time  in  idle 
experiments.  Here  is  audience  and  expectation 
prepared.  In  the  case  of  Shakspeare  there  is 
much  more.  At  the  time  when  he  left  Stratford, 
and  went  up  to  London,  a  great  body  of  stage- 
plays,  of  all  dates  and  writers,   existed  in    manu- 


Sbaftspeare;  or,  tbe  poet  197 

script,  and  were  in  turn  produced  on  the  boards. 
Here  is  the  Tale  of  Troy,  which  the  audience  will 
bear  hearing  some  part  of  every  week ;  the  Death 
of  Julius  Caesar,  and  other  stories  out  of  Plutarch, 
which  they  never  tire  of;  a  shelf  full  of  English 
history,  from  the  chronicles  of  Brut  and  Arthur, 
down  to  the  royal  Henries,  which  men  hear  eagerly; 
and  a  string  of  doleful  tragedies,  merry  Italian 
tales,  and  Spanish  voyages,  which  all  the  London 
prentices  know.  All  the  mass  has  been  treated, 
with  more  or  less  skill,  by  every  playwright,  and 
the  prompter  has  the  soiled  and  tattered  man- 
uscripts. It  is  now  no  longer  possible  to  say 
who  wrote  them  first.  They  have  been  the  prop- 
erty of  the  Theatre  so  long,  and  so  many  rising 
geniuses  have  enlarged  or  altered  them,  inserting 
a  speech,  or  a  whole  scene,  or  adding  a  song,  that 
110  man  can  any  longer  claim  copyright  on  this 
work  of  numbers.  Happily,  no  man  wishes  to. 
They  are  not  yet  desired  in  that  way.  We  have 
few  readers,  many  spectators  and  hearers.  They 
had  best  lie  where  they  are. 

Shakspeare,  in  common  with  his  comrades, 
esteemed  the  mass  of  old  plays,  waste  stock,  in 
which  any  experiment  could  be  freely  tried.  Had 
Xht  prestige  which  hedges  about  a  modern  tragedy 
existed,  nothing  could  have  been  done.     The  rude 


198  "Representative  Oscn 

warm  blood  of  the  living  England  circulated  in 
the  play,  as  in  street-ballads,  and  gave  body  which 
he  wanted  to  his  airy  and  majestic  fancy.  The 
poet  needs  a  ground  in  popular  tradition  on  which 
he  may  work,  and  which,  again,  may  restrain  his 
art  within  the  due  temperance.  It  holds  him  to 
the  people,  supplies  a  foundation  for  his  edifice ; 
and,  in  furnishing  so  much  work  done  to  his  hand, 
leaves  him  at  leisure,  and  in  full  strength  for  the 
audacities  of  his  imagination.  In  short,  the  poet 
owes  to  his  legend  what  sculpture  owed  to  the 
temple.  Sculpture  in  Egypt,  and  in  Greece,  grew 
up  in  subordination  to  architecture.  It  was  the 
ornament  of  the  temple  wall :  at  first,  a  rude  relief 
carved  on  pediments,  then  the  relief  became 
bolder,  and  a  head  or  arm  was  projected  from 
the  wall,  the  groups  being  still  arrayed  with  refer- 
ence to  the  building,  which  serves  also  as  a  frame 
to  hold  the  figures;  and  when,  at  last,  the  greatest 
freedom  of  style  and  treatment  was  reached,  the 
prevailing  genius  of  architecture  still  enforced  a 
certain  calmness  and  continence  in  the  statue.  As 
soon  as  the  statue  was  begun  for  itself,  and  with  no 
reference  to  the  temple  or  palace,  the  art  began  to 
decline:  freak,  extravagance,  and  exhibition,  took 
the  place  of  the  old  temperance.  This  balance- 
wheel,  which  the  sculptor  found  in  architecture. 


Sbaftspeare ;  or,  tbc  poet  199 

the  perilous  irritability  of  poetic  talent  found  in 
the  accumulated  dramatic  materials  to  which  the 
people  were  already  wonted,  and  which  had  a  cer- 
tain excellence  which  no  single  genius,  however 
extraordinary,  could  hope  to  create. 

In  point  of  fact,  it  appears  that  Shakspeare  did 
owe  debts  in  all  directions,  and  was  able  to  use 
whatever  he  found  ;  and  the  amount  of  indebted- 
ness may  be  inferred  from  Malone's  laborious  com- 
putations in  regard  to  the  First,  Second,  and  Third 
parts  of  Henry  VI.,  in  which,  '^  out  of  6043  lines, 
1 77 1  were  written  by  some  author  preceding 
Shakspeare;  2373  by  him,  on  the  foundation  laid 
by  his  predecessors  ;  and  1899  were  entirely  his 
own."  And  the  proceeding  investigation  hardly 
leaves  a  single  drama  of  his  absolute  invention. 
Malone's  sentence  is  an  important  piece  of  ex- 
ternal history.  In  Henry  VIII.,  I  think  I  see 
plainly  the  cropping  out  of  the  original  rock  on 
which  his  own  finer  stratum  was  laid.  The  first 
play  was  written  by  a  superior,  thoughtful  man, 
with  a  vicious  ear.  I  can  mark  his  lines,  and 
know  well  their  cadence.  See  Wolsey's  soliloquy, 
and  the  following  scene  with  Cromwell,  where, — 
instead  of  the  metre  of  Shakspeare,  whose  secret 
is,  that  the  thought  constructs  the  tune,  so  that 
reading   for  the  sense   will   best   bring    out   the 


200  IRcpresentativc  Ifbcn 

rhythm, — here  the  lines  are  constructed  on  a 
given  tune,  and  the  verse  has  even  a  trace  of 
pulpit  eloquence.  But  the  play  contains,  through 
all  its  length,  unmistakable  traits  of  Shakspeare's 
hand,  and  some  passages,  as  the  account  of  the 
coronation,  are  like  autographs.  What  is  odd, 
the  compliment  to  Queen  Elizabeth  is  in  the  bad 
rhythm. 

Shakspeare  knew  that  tradition  supplies  a  bet- 
ter fable  than  any  invention  can.  If  he  lost  any 
credit  of  design,  he  augmented  his  resources  ;  and, 
at  that  day,  our  petulant  demand  for  originality 
was  not  so  much  pressed.  There  was  no  litera- 
ture for  the  million.  The  universal  reading,  the 
cheap  press,  were  unknown.  A  great  poet,  who 
appears  in  illiterate  times,  absorbs  into  his  sphere 
all  the  light  which  is  any  where  radiating.  Every 
intellectual  jewel,  every  flower  of  sentiment,  it 
is  his  fine  office  to  bring  to  his  people  ;  and  he 
comes  to  value  his  memory  equally  with  his 
invention.  He  is  therefore  little  solicitous  whence 
his  thoughts  have  been  derived  ;  whether  through 
translation,  whether  through  tradition,  whether 
by  travel  in  distant  countries,  whether  by  inspira- 
tion ;  from  whatever  source,  they  are  equally 
welcome  to  his  uncritical  audience.  Nay,  he 
borrows  very  near  home.     Other  men   say  wise 


Sbaftspearc;  or,  tbe  poet  201 

things  as  well  as  he ;  only  they  say  a  good  many 
foolish  things,  and  Jdo  not  know  when  they  have 
spoken  wisely.  He  knows  the  sparkle  of  the 
true  stone,  and  puts  it  in  high  place,  wherever 
he  finds  it.  Such  is  the  happy  position  of  Homer, 
perhaps ;  of  Chaucer,  of  Saadi.  They  felt  that 
all  wit  was  their  wit.  And  they  are  librarians 
and  historiographers,  as  well  as  poets.  Each 
romancer  was  heir  and  dispenser  of  all  the  hun- 
dred tales  of  the  world, — 

"  Presenting  Thebes'  and  Pelops'  line 
And  the  tale  of  Troy  divine." 

The  influence  of  Chaucer  is  conspicuous  in  all  our 
early  literature  ;  and,  more  recently,  not  only 
Pope  and  Dryden  have  been  beholden  to  him, 
but,  in  the  whole  society  of  English  writers,  a 
large  unacknowledged  debt  is  easily  traced.  One 
is  charmed  with  the  opulence  which  feeds  so  many 
pensioners.  But  Chaucer  is  a  huge  borrower. 
Chaucer,  it  seems,  drew  continually,  through 
Lydgate  and  Caxton,  from  Guido  di  Colonna, 
whose  Latin  romance  of  the  Trojan  war  was  in 
turn  a  compilation  from  Dares  Phrygius,  Ovid, 
and  Statius.  Then  Petrarch,  Boccaccio,  and  the 
Provencal  poets,  are  his  benefactors  :  the  Ro- 
maunt   of  the   Rose  is  only  judicious   translation 


ao2  •Representative  Aen 

from  William  of  Lorris  and  John  of  Meun: 
Troilus  and  Creseide,  from  Lollius  of  Urbino : 
The  Cock  and  the  Fox,  from  the  Lais  of  Marie : 
The  House  of  Fame,  from  the  French  or  Italian  : 
and  poor  Gower  he  uses  as  if  he  were  only  a  brick- 
kiln or  stone-quarry  out  of  which  to  build  his 
house.  He  steals  by  this  apology, — that  what  he 
takes  has  no  worth  where  he  finds  it,  and  the 
greatest  where  he  leaves  it.  It  has  come  to  be 
practically  a  sort  of  rule  in  literature,  that  a  man, 
having  once  shown  himself  capable  of  original 
writing,  is  entitled  thenceforth  to  steal  from  the 
writings  of  others  at  discretion.  Thought  is  the 
property  of  him  who  can  entertain  it ;  and  of  him 
who  can  adequately  place  it.  A  certain  awk- 
wardness marks  the  use  of  borrowed  thoughts ; 
but,  as  soon  as  we  have  learned  what  to  do  with 
them,  they  become  our  own. 

Thus,  all  originality  is  relative.  Every  thinker 
it  retrospective.  The  learned  member  of  the 
legislature,  at  Westminster,  or  at  Washington, 
speaks  and  votes  for  thousands.  Show  us  the 
constituency,  and  the  now  invisible  channels  by 
which  the  senator  is  made  aware  of  their  wishes, 
the  crowd  of  practical  and  knowing  men,  who, 
by  correspondence  or  conversation,  are  feeding 
him  with  evidence,  anecdotes,  and  estimates,  and 


Sbaftspeare;  or,  tbe  poet  203 

it  will  bereave  his  fine  attitude  and  resistance  of 
something  of  their  impressiveness.  As  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel  and  Mr.  Webster  vote,  so  Locke  and 
Rousseau  think  for  thousands;  and  so  there 
were  fountains  all  around  Homer,  Menu,  Saadi, 
or  Milton,  from  which  they  drew;  friends,  lovers, 
books,  traditions,  proverbs, — all  perished,  — 
which,  if  seen,  would  go  to  reduce  the  wonder. 
Did  the  bard  speak  with  authority?  Did  he  feel 
himself  overmatched  by  any  companion  ?  The 
appeal  is  to  the  consciousness  of  the  writer.  Is 
there  at  last  in  his  breast  a  Delphi  whereof  to  ask 
concerning  any  thought  or  thing,  whether  it  be 
verily  so,  yea  or  nay  ?  and  to  have  answer,  and 
to  rely  on  that  ?  All  the  debts  which  such  a  man 
could  contract  to  other  wit,  would  never  disturb 
his  consciousness  of  originality  :  for  the  ministra- 
tions of  books,  and  of  other  minds,  are  a  whiff 
of  smoke  to  that  most  private  reality  with  which 
he  has  conversed. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  what  is  best  written  or 
done  by  genius,  in  the  world,  was  no  man's  work, 
but  came  by  wide  social  labor,  when  a  thousand 
wrought  like  one,  sharing  the  same  impulse.  Our 
English  Bible  is  a  wonderful  specimen  of  the 
strength  and  music  of  the  English  language.  But 
it  was  not  made  by  one  man,  or  at  one  time ;  but 


204  'Representative  /Bben 

centuries  and  churches  brought  it  to  perfect  ion  ► 
There  never  was  a  time  when  there  was  not  some 
translation  ?xisting.  The  Liturgy,  admired  for  its 
energy  and  pathos,  is  an  anthology  of  the  piety 
of  ages  and  nations,  a  translation  of  the  prayers 
and  forms  of  the  Catholic  church, — these  collected, 
too,  in  long  periods,  from  the  prayers  and  medita- 
tions of  every  saint  and  sacred  writer,  all  over  the 
world.  Grotius  makes  the  like  remark  in  respect 
to  the  Lord's  Prayer,  that  the  single  clauses  of 
which  it  is  composed  were  already  in  use,  in  the 
time  of  Christ,  in  the  rabbinical  forms.  He 
picked  out  the  grains  of  gold.  The  nervous 
language  of  the  Common  Law,  the  impressive 
forms  of  our  courts,  and  the  precision  and  substan- 
tial truth  of  the  legal  distinctions,  are  the  con- 
tribution of  all  the  sharp-sighted,  strong-minded 
men  who  have  lived  in  the  countries  where  these 
laws  govern.  The  translation  of  Plutarch  gets  its 
excellence  by  being  translation  on  translation. 
There  never  was  a  time  when  there  was  none.  All 
the  truly  idiomatic  and  national  phrases  are  kept,, 
and  all  others  successively  picked  out,  and  thrown 
away.  Something  like  the  same  process  had  gone 
on,  long  before,  with  the  originals  of  these  books. 
The  world  takes  liberties  with  world-books,  Ve- 
das,  iEsop's  Fables,  Pilpay,  Arabian  Nights,  Cid, 


Sbaftspcare ;  or,  tbe  poet  205 

Iliad,  Robin  Hood,  Scottish  Minstrelsy,  are  not 
the  work  of  single  men.  In  the  composition  of 
such  works,  the  time  thinks,  the  market  thinks, 
the  mason,  the  carpenter,  the  merchant,  the 
farmer,  the  fop,  all  think  for  us.  Every  book 
supplies  its  time  with  one  good  word ;  every 
municipal  law,  every  trade,  every  folly  of  the  day, 
and  the  generic  catholic  genius  who  is  not  afraid 
or  ashamed  to  owe  his  originality  to  the  original- 
ity of  all,  stands  with  the  next  age  as  the  recorder 
and  embodiment  of  his  own. 

We  have  to  thank  the  researches  of  antiquaries, 
and  the  Shakspeare  Society,  for  ascertaining  the 
steps  of  the  English  drama,  from  the  Mysteries 
celebrated  in  churches  and  by  churchmen,  and  the 
final  detachment  from  the  church,  and  the  com- 
pletion of  secular  plays,  from  Ferrex  and  Porrex, 
and  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  down  to  the  pos- 
session of  the  stage  by  the  very  pieces  which 
Shakspeare  altered,  remodelled,  and  finally  made 
his  own.  Elated  with  success,  and  piqued  by  the 
growing  interest  of  the  problem,  they  have  left 
no  book-stall  unsearched,  no  chest  in  a  garret  un- 
opened, no  file  of  old  yellow  accounts  to  decom- 
pose in  damp  and  worms,  so  keen  was  the  hope  to 
discover  whether  the  boy  Shakspeare  poached  or 
not,  whether  he  held  horses  at  the  theatre  door, 
14 


2o6  "Representative  Iben 

whether  he  kept  school,  and  why  he  left  in  his 
will  only  his  second-best  bed  to  Ann  Hathaway, 
his  wife. 

There  is  somewhat  touching  in  the  madness 
with  which  the  passing  age  mischooses  the  object 
on  which  all  candles  shine,  and  all  eyes  are  turned ; 
the  care  with  which  it  registers  every  trifle  touch- 
ing Queen  Elizabeth,  and  King  James,  and  the 
Essexes,  Leicesters,  Burleighs,  and  Buckinghams; 
and  lets  pass  without  a  single  valuable  note  the 
founder  of  another  dynasty,  which  alone  will  cause 
the  Tudor  dynasty  to  be  remembered, — the  man 
who  carries  the  Saxon  race  in  him  by  the  inspira- 
tion which  feeds  him,  and  on  whose  thoughts  the 
foremost  people  of  the  world  are  now  for  some 
ages  to  be  nourished,  and  minds  to  receive  this 
and  not  another  bias.  A  popular  player, — nobody 
suspected  he  was  the  poet  of  the  human  race; 
and  the  secret  was  kept  as  faithfully  from  poets  and 
intellectual  men,  as  from  courtiers  and  frivolous 
people.  Bacon,  who  took  the  inventory  of  the 
human  understanding  for  his  times,  never  men- 
tioned his  name.  Ben  Jonson,  though  we  have 
strained  his  few  words  of  regard  and  panegyric, 
had  no  suspicion  of  the  elastic  fame  whose  first 
vibrations  he  was  attempting.  He  no  doubt 
thought  the  praise  he  has  conceded  to  him  gener- 


Sbaftgpcare;  or,  tbe  poet  207 

ous,  and  esteemed  himself,  out  of  all  question,  the 
better  poet  of  the  two. 

If  it  need  wit  to  know  wit,  according  to  the 
proverb,  Shakspeare's  time  should  be  capable  of 
recognizing  it.  Sir  Henry  Wotton  was  born  four 
years  after  Shakspeare,  and  died  twenty-three 
years  after  him;  and  I  find  among  his  correspond- 
ents and  acquaintances,  the  following  persons: 
Theodore  Beza,  Isaac  Casaubon,  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney, Earl  of  Essex,  Lord  Bacon,  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  John  Milton,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  Isaac 
Walton,  Dr.  Donne,  Abraham  Cowley,  Bellar- 
mine,  Charles  Cotton,  John  Pym,  John  Hales, 
Kepler,  Vieta,  Albericus  Gentilis,  Paul  Sarpi, 
Arminius;  with  all  of  whom  exist  some  token 
of  his  having  communicated,  without  enumerating 
many  others,  whom  doubtless  he  saw, — Shaks- 
peare, Spenser,  Jonson,  Beaumont,  Massinger, 
two  Herberts,  Marlow,  Chapman,  and  the  rest. 
Since  the  constellation  of  great  men  who  appeared 
in  Greece  in  the  time  of  Pericles,  there  was  never 
any  such  society ; — yet  their  genius  failed  them 
to  find  out  the  best  head  in  the  universe.  Our 
poet's  mask  was  impenetrable.  You  cannot  see 
the  mountain  near.  It  took  a  century  to  make  it 
suspected ;  and  not  until  two  centuries  had  passed, 
after  his  death,  did  any  criticism  which  we  think 


2o8  "Representative  ^en 

adequate  begin  to  appear.  It  was  not  possible  to 
write  the  history  of  Shakspeare  till  now;  for  he 
is  the  father  of  German  literature  :  it  was  on  the 
introduction  of  Shakspeare  into  German,  by  Les- 
sing,  and  the  translation  of  his  works  by  Wieland 
and  Schlegel,  that  the  rapid  burst  of  German  lit- 
erature was  most  intimately  connected.  It  was 
not  until  the  nineteenth  century,  whose  specula- 
tive genius  is  a  sort  of  living  Hamlet,  that  the 
tragedy  of  Hamlet  could  find  such  wondering 
readers.  Now,  literature,  philosphy,  and  thought, 
are  Shakspearized.  His  mind  is  the  horizon  be- 
yond which,  at  present,  we  do  not  see.  Our  ears 
are  educated  to  music  by  his  rhythm.  Coleridge 
and  Goethe  are  the  only  critics  who  have  ex- 
pressed our  convictions  with  any  adequate  fidelity  : 
but  there  is  in  all  cultivated  minds  a  silent  ap- 
preciation of  his  superlative  power  and  beauty, 
which,  like  Christianity,  qualifies  the  period. 

The  Shakspeare  Society  have  inquired  in  all 
directions,  advertised  the  missing  facts,  offered 
money  for  any  information  that  will  lead  to  proof; 
and  with  what  results?  Beside  some  important 
illustration  of.  the  history  of  the  English  stage,  to 
which  I  have  adverted,  they  have  gleaned  a  few 
facts  touching  the  property,  and  dealings  in  regard 
to   property,  of  the   poet.     It  appears  that,  from 


Sbaftspeare;  or,  tbe  poet  209 

year  to  year,  he  owned  a  larger  share  in  the 
Blackfriars'  Theatre:  its  wardrobe  and  other 
appurtenances  were  his :  that  he  bought  an  estate 
in  his  native  village,  with  his  earnings,  as  writer 
and  shareholder ;  that  he  lived  in  the  best  house 
in  Stratford  ;  was  intrusted  by  his  neighbors  with 
their  commissions  in  London,  as  of  borrowing 
money,  and  the  like ;  that  he  was  a  veritable 
farmer.  About  the  time  when  he  was  writing 
Macbeth,  he  sues  Philip  Rogers,  in  the  borough- 
court  of  Stratford,  for  thirty-five  shillings,  ten 
pence,  for  corn  delivered  to  him  at  different  times; 
and,  in  all  respects,  appears  as  a  good  husband, 
with  no  reputation  for  eccentricity  or  excess.  He 
was  a  good-natured  sort  of  man,  an  actor  and 
shareholder  in  the  theatre,  not  in  any  striking 
manner  distinguished  from  other  actors  and 
managers.  I  admit  the  importance  of  this  infor- 
mation. It  was  well  worth  the  pains  that  have 
been  taken  to  procure  it. 

But  whatever  scraps  of  information  concerning 
his  condition  these  researches  may  have  rescued, 
they  can  shed  no  light  upon  that  infinite  inven- 
tion which  is  the  concealed  magnet  of  his  attrac- 
tion for  us.  We  are  very  clumsy  writers  of 
history.  We  tell  the  chronicle  of  parentage, 
birth,  birth-place,  schooling,  school-mates,  earning 


2IO  •Representative  Aben 

of  money,  marriage,  publication  of  books,  celeb- 
rity, death ;  and  when  we  have  come  to  an  end  of 
this  gossip,  no  ray  of  relation  appears  between  it 
and  the  goddess-born ;  and  it  seems  as  if,  had  we 
dipped  at  random  into  the  "  Modern  Plutarch," 
and  read  any  other  life  there,  it  would  have  fitted 
the  poems  as  well.  It  is  the  essence  of  poetry  to 
spring,  like  the  rainbow  daughter  of  Wonder, 
from  the  invisible,  to  abolish  the  past,  and  refuse 
all  history.  Malone,  Warburton,  Dyce,  and 
Collier,  have  wasted  their  oil.  The  famed  theatres, 
Covent  Garden,  Drury  Lane,  the  Park,  and  Tre- 
mont,  have  vainly  assisted.  Betterton,  Garrick, 
Kemble,  Kean,  and  Macready,  dedicate  their 
lives  to  this  genius ;  him  they  crown,  elucidate, 
obey,  and  express.  The  genius  knows  them  not. 
The  recitation  begins  ;  one  golden  word  leaps  out 
immortal  from  all  this  painted  pedantry,  and 
sweetly  torments  us  with  invitations  to  its  own 
inaccessible  homes.  I  remember,  I  went  once  to 
see  the  Hamlet  of  a  famed  performer,  the  pride 
of  the  English  stage  ;  and  all  I  then  heard,  and  all 
I  now  remember,  of  the  tragedian,  was  that  in 
which  the  tragedian  had  no  part ;  simply,  Hamlet's 
question  to  the  ghost, — 

**  What  may  this  mean, 
That  thou,  dead  corse,  again  in  complete  steel 
Revisit' St  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon?" 


Sbaftspearc;  or,  tbe  poet  211 

That  imagination  which  dilates  the  closet  he 
writes  in  to  the  world's  dimension,  crowds  it  with 
agents  in  rank  and  order,  as  quickly  reduces  the 
big  reality  to  be  the  glimpses  of  the  moon.  These 
tricks  of  his  magic  spoil  for  us  the  illusions  of  the 
green-room.  Can  any  biography  shed  light  on 
the  localities  into  which  the  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  admits  me?  Did  Shakspeare  confide 
to  any  notary  or  parish  recorder,  sacristan, 
or  surrogate,  in  Stratford,  the  genesis  of  that 
delicate  creation?  The  forest  of  Arden,  the 
nimble  air  of  Scone  Castle,  the  moonlight 
of  Portia's  villa,  *'  the  antres  vast  and  desarts 
idle,"  of  Othello's  captivity, — where  is  the  third 
cousin,  or  grand-nephew,  the  chancellor's  file  of 
accounts,  or  private  letter,  that  has  kept  one  word 
of  those  transcendent  secrets  ?  In  fine,  in  this 
drama,  as  in  all  great  works  of  art, — in  the  Cyclo- 
paean  architecture  of  Egypt  and  India;  in  the 
Phidian  sculpture  ;  the  Gothic  minsters ;  the  Ital- 
ian painting  ;  the  Ballads  of  Spain  and  Scotland, 
— the  Genius  draws  up  the  ladder  after  him,  when 
the  creative  age  goes  up  to  heaven,  and  gives  way 
to  a  new,  who  see  the  works,  and  ask  in  vain  for  a 
history. 

Shakspeare    is    the    only  biographer    of  Shak- 
speare ;  and  even   he   can  tell  nothing,  except  to 


212  'Representative  /Ren 

the  Shakspeare  in  us  ;  that  is,  to  our  most  appre- 
hensive and  sympathetic  hour.  He  cannot  step  from 
off  his  tripod,  and  give  us  anecdotes  of  his  inspi- 
rations. Read  the  antique  documents  extricated, 
analyzed,  and  compared,  by  the  assiduous  Dyce 
and  Collier ;  and  now  read  one  of  those  skiey 
sentences, — aerolites, — which  seem  to  have  fallen 
out  of  heaven,  and  which,  not  your  experience,  but 
the  man  within  the  breast,  has  accepted  as  words 
of  fate ;  and  tell  me  if  they  match  ;  if  the  former 
account  in  any  manner  for  the  latter ;  or,  which 
gives  the  most  historical  insight  into  the  man. 
Hence,  though  our  external  history  is  so  mea- 
gre, yet,  with  Shakspeare  for  biographer,  instead 
of  Aubrey  and  Rowe,  we  have  really  the  in- 
formation which  is  material,  that  which  describes 
character  and  fortune;  that  which,  if  we  were 
about  to  meet  the  man  and  deal  with  him,  would 
most  import  us  to  know.  We  have  his  recorded 
convictions  on  those  questions  which  knock  for 
answer  at  every  heart, — on  life  and  death,  on  love, 
on  wealth  and  poverty,  on  the  prizes  of  life,  and 
the  ways  whereby  we  come  at  them;  on  the 
characters  of  men,  and  the  influences,  occult  and 
open,  which  affect  their  fortunes:  and  on  those 
mysterious  and  demoniacal  powers  which  defy 
our  science,  and  which  yet  interweave  their  mal- 


Sbaftspearc;  or,  tbc  poet  213 

ice  and  their  gift  in  our  brightest  hours.  Who 
ever  read  the  volume  of  the  Sonnets,  without 
finding  that  the  poet  had  there  revealed,  under 
masks  that  are  no  masks  to  the  intelligent,  the 
lore  of  friendship  and  of  love ;  the  confusion  of 
sentiments  in  the  most  susceptible,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  the  most  intellectual  of  men  ?  What 
trait  of  his  private  mind  has  he  hidden  in  his 
dramas?  One  can  discern,  in  his  ample  pictures 
of  the  gentleman  and  the  king,  what  forms  and 
humanities  pleased  him  ;  his  delight  in  troops  of 
friends,  in  large  hospitality,  in  cheerful  giving. 
Let  Timon,  let  Warwick,  let  Antonio  the  mer- 
chant, answer  for  his  great  heart.  So  far  from 
Shakspeare  being  the  least  known,  he  is  the  one 
person,  in  all  modern  history,  known  to  us.  What 
point  of  morals,  of  manners,  of  economy,  of  philos- 
ophy, of  religion,  of  taste,  of  the  conduct  of  life, 
has  he  not  settled  ?  What  mystery  has  he  not 
signified  his  knowledge  of?  What  office  or  func- 
tion, or  district  of  man's  work,  has  he  not  remem- 
bered? What  king  has  he  not  taught  state,  as 
Talma  taught  Napoleon  ?  What  maiden  has  not 
found  him  finer  than  her  delicacy?  What  lover 
has  he  not  outloved?  What  sage  has  he  not  out- 
seen  ?  What  gentleman  has  he  not  instructed  in 
the  rudeness  of  his  behavior? 


214  "Kepresentatlve  /Sscn 

Some  able  and  appreciating  critics  think  no 
criticism  on  Shakspeare  valuable,  that  does  not 
rest  purely  on  the  dramatic  merit;  that  he  is 
falsely  judged  as  poet  and  philosopher.  I  think  as 
highly  as  these  critics  of  his  dramatic  merit,  but 
still  think  it  secondary.  He  was  a  full  man,  who 
liked  to  talk;  a  brain  exhaling  thoughts  and  im- 
ages, which,  seeking  vent,  found  the  drama  next 
at  hand.  Had  he  been  less,  we  should  have  had 
to  consider  how  well  he  filled  his  place,  how  good 
a  dramatist  he  was, — and  he  is  the  best  in  the 
world.  But  it  turns  out,  that  what  he  has  to  say 
is  of  that  weight,  as  to  withdraw  some  attention 
from  the  vehicle ;  and  he  is  like  some  saint  whose 
history  is  to  be  rendered  into  all  languages,  into 
verse  and  prose,  into  songs  and  pictures,  and  cut 
up  into  proverbs;  so  that  the  occasions  which  gave 
the  saint's  meaning  the  form  of  a  conversation,  or 
of  a  prayer,  or  of  a  code  of  laws,  is  immaterial 
compared  with  the  universality  of  its  application. 
So  it  fares  with  the  wise  Shakspeare  and  his  book 
of  life.  He  wrote  the  airs  for  all  our  modern 
music :  he  wrote  the  text  of  modern  life  ;  the  text 
of  manners:  he  drew  the  man  of  England  and 
Europe;  the  father  of  the  man  in  America:  he 
drew  the  man  and  described  the  day,  and  what  is 
done  in  it :  he  read  the  hearts  of  men  and  women, 


Sbaftspeare;  or,  tbe  poet  215 

their  probity,  and  their  second  thought,  and  wiles; 
the  wiles  of  innocence,  and  the  transitions  by 
which  virtues  and  vices  slide  into  their  contraries: 
he  could  divide  the  mother's  part  from  the  father's 
part  in  the  face  of  the  child,  or  draw  the  fine  de- 
marcations of  freedom  and  of  fate :  he  knew  the 
laws  of  repression  which  make  the  police  of 
nature :  and  all  the  sweets  and  all  the  terrors  of 
human  lot  lay  in  his  mind  as  truly  but  as  softly  as 
the  landscape  lies  on  the  eye.  And  the  import- 
ance of  this  wisdom  of  life  sinks  the  form,  as  of 
Drama  or  Epic,  out  of  notice.  'Tis  like  making 
a  question  concerning  the  paper  on  which  a  king's 
message  is  written. 

Shakspeare  is  as  much  out  of  the  category  of 
eminent  authors,  as  he  is  out  of  the  crowd.  He 
is  inconceivably  wise ;  the  others,  conceivably. 
A  good  reader  can,  in  a  sort,  nestle  into  Plato's 
brain,  and  think  from  thence  ;  but  not  into  Shaks- 
peare's.  We  are  still  out  of  doors.  For  executive 
faculty,  for  creation,  Shakspeare  is  unique.  No 
man  can  imagine  it  better.  He  was  the  farthest 
reach  of  subtlety  compatible  with  an  individual 
self, — the  subtilest  of  authors,  and  only  just 
within  the  possibility  of  authorship.  With  this 
wisdom  of  Hfe,  is  the  equal  endowment  of 
imaginative  and  of  lyric  power.     He  clothed  the 


2t6  "Representative  flSen 

creatures  of  his  legend  with  form  and  sentiments, 
as  if  they  were  people  who  had  lived  under  his 
roof;  and  few  real  men  have  left  such  distinct 
characters  as  these  fictions.  And  they  spoke  in 
language  as  sweet  as  it  was  fit.  Yet  his  talents 
never  seduced  him  into  an  ostentation,  nor  did 
he  harp  on  one  string.  An  omnipresent  humanity 
coordinates  all  his  faculties.  Give  a  man  of  talents 
a  story  to  tell,  and  his  partiality  will  presently 
appear.  He  has  certain  observations,  opinions, 
topics,  which  have  some  accidental  prominence, 
and  which  he  disposes  all  to  exhibit.  He  crams  this 
part,  and  starves  that  other  part,  consulting  not 
the  fitness  of  the  thing,  but  his  fitness  and  strength. 
But  Shakspeare  has  no  peculiarity,  no  importunate 
topic  ;  but  all  is  duly  given ;  no  veins,  no  curiosi- 
ties :  no  cow-painter,  no  bird-fancier,  no  manner- 
ist is  he :  he  has  no  discoverable  egotism :  the 
great  he  tells  greatly ;  the  small,  subordinately. 
He  is  wise  without  emphasis  or  assertion ;  he  is 
strong,  as  nature  is  strong,  who  lifts  the  land  into 
mountain  slopes  without  effort,  and  by  the  same 
rule  as  she  floats  a  bubble  in  the  air,  and  likes  as 
well  to  do  the  one  as  the  other.  This  makes  that 
equality  of  power  in  farce,  tragedy,  narrative,  and 
love-songs ;  a  merit  so  incessant,  that  each  reader 
is  incredulous  of  the  perception  of  other  readers. 


Sbaftspeare;  or,  tbe  poet  217 

This  power  of  expression,  or  of  transferring  the 
inmost  truth  of  things  into  music  and  verse, 
makes  him  the  type  of  the  poet,  and  has  added 
a  new  problem  to  metaphysics.  This  is  that 
which  throws  him  into  natural  history,  as  a  main 
production  of  the  globe,  and  as  announcing  new 
eras  and  ameliorations.  Things  were  mirrored  in 
his  poetry  without  loss  or  blur :  he  could  paint 
the  fine  with  precision,  the  great  with  compass ; 
the  tragic  and  the  comic  indifferently,  and  without 
any  distortion  or  favor.  He  carried  his  powerful 
execution  into  minute  details,  to  a  hair  point ; 
finishes  an  eyelash  or  a  dimple  as  firmly  as  he 
draws  a  mountain ;  and  yet  these,  like  nature's, 
will  bear  the  scrutiny  of  the  solar  microscope. 

In  short,  he  is  the  chief  example  to  prove  that 
more  or  less  of  production,  more  or  fewer  pictures, 
is  a  thing  indifferent.  He  had  the  power  to  make 
one  picture.  Daguerre  learned  how  to  let  one 
flower  etch  its  image  on  his  plate  of  iodine ;  and 
then  proceeds  at  leisure  to  etch  a  million.  There 
are  always  objects ;  but  there  was  never  representa- 
tion. Here  is  perfect  representation,  at  last ;  and 
now  let  the  world  of  figures  sit  for  their  portraits. 
No  recipe  can  be  given  for  the  making  of  a 
Shakspeare  ;  but  the  possibility  of  the  translation 
of  things  into  song  is  demonstrated.- 


2i8  "Representative  /Ren 

His  lyric  power  lies  in  the  genius  of  the  piece. 
The  sonnets,  though  their  excellence  is  lost  in  the 
splendor  of  the  dramas,  are  as  inimitable  as  they: 
and  it  is  not  a  merit  of  lines,  but  a  total  merit 
of  the  piece ;  like  the  tone  of  voice  of  some  in- 
comparable person,  so  is  this  a  speech  of  poetic 
beings,  and  any  clause  as  unproducible  now  as  a 
whole  poem. 

Though  the  speeches  in  the  plays,  and  single 
lines,  have  a  beauty  which  tempts  the  ear  to  pause 
on  them  for  their  euphuism,  yet  the  sentence  is  so 
loaded  with  meaning,  and  so  linked  with  its  fore- 
goers  and  followers,  that  the  logician  is  satisfied. 
His  means  are  as  admirable  as  his  ends;  every 
subordinate  invention,  by  which  he  helps  himself 
to  connect  some  irreconcilable  opposites,  is  a  poem 
too.  He  is  not  reduced  to  dismount  and  walk, 
because  his  horses  are  running  off  with  him  in 
some  distant  direction :  he  always  rides. 

The  finest  poetry  was  first  experience:  but  the 
thought  has  suffered  a  transformation  since  it  was 
an  experience.  Cultivated  men  often  attain  a 
good  degree  of  skill  in  writing  verses ;  but  it  is 
easy  to  read,  through  their  poems,  their  personal 
history:  anyone  acquainted  with  parties  can  name 
every  figure :  this  is  Andrew,  and  that  is  Rachel. 
The  sense  thus  remains  prosaic.     It  is  a  caterpillar 


Sbalispeare;  or,  tbe  poet  219 

with  wings,  and  not  yet  a  butterfly.  In  the  poet's 
mind,  the  fact  has  gone  quite  over  into  the  new 
element  of  thought,  and  has  lost  all  that  is  exuvial. 
This  generosity  abides  with  Shakspeare.  We  say, 
from  the  truth  and  closeness  of  his  pictures,  that 
he  knows  the  lesson  by  heart.  Yet  there  is  not  a 
trace  of  egotism. 

One  more  royal  trait  properly  belongs  to  the 
poet.  I  mean  his  cheerfulness,  without  which 
no  man  can  be  a  poet, — for  beauty  is  his  aim. 
He  loves  virtue,  not  for  its  obligation,  but  for  its 
grace:  he  delights  in  the  world,  in  man,  in 
woman,  for  the  lovely  light  that  sparkles  from 
them.  Beauty,  the  spirit  of  joy  and  hilarity,  he 
sheds  over  the  universe.  Epicurus  relates,  that 
poetry  hath  such  charms  that  a  lover  might  for- 
sake his  mistress  to  partake  of  them.  And  the 
true  bards  have  been  noted  for  their  firm  and 
cheerful  temper.  Homer  lies  in  sunshine ;  Chau- 
cer is  glad  and  erect;  and  Saadi  says,  ''It  was 
rumored  abroad  that  I  was  penitent ;  but  what 
had  I  to  do  with  repentance  ?' '  Not  less  sov- 
ereign and  cheerful, — much  more  sovereign  and 
cheerful  is  the  tone  of  Shakspeare.  His  name 
suggests  joy  and  emancipation  to  the  heart  of 
men.  If  he  should  appear  in  any  company  of 
human  souls,  who  would  not  march  in  his  troop  ? 


220  "Representative  /Ben 

He  touches  nothing  that  does  not  borrow  health 
and  longevity  from  his  festive  style. 

And  now,  how  stands  the  account  of  man  with 
this  bard  and  benefactor,  when  in  solitude,  shut- 
ting our  ears  to  the  reverberations  of  his  fame, 
we  seek  to  strike  the  balance?  Solitude  has 
austere  lessons ;  it  can  teach  us  to  spare  both 
heroes  and  poets  ;  and  it  weighs  Shakspeare  also, 
and  finds  him  to  share  the  halfness  and  imperfec- 
tion of  humanity. 

Shakspeare,  Homer,  Dante,  Chaucer,  saw  the 
splendor  of  meaning  that  plays  over  the  visible 
world ;  knew  that  a  tree  had  another  use  than 
for  apples,  and  corn  another  than  for  meal,  and 
the  ball  of  the  earth,  than  for  tillage  and  roads : 
that  these  things  bore  a  second  and  finer  harvest 
to  the  mind,  being  emblems  of  its  thoughts,  and 
conveying  in  all  their  natural  history  a  certain 
mute  commentary  on  human  life.  Shakspeare 
employed  them  as  colors  to  compose  his  picture. 
He  rested  in  their  beauty ;  and  never  took  the 
step  which  seemed  inevitable  to  such  genius, 
namely,  to  explore  the  virtue  which  resides  in 
these  symbols,  and  imparts  this  power, — what  is 
that  which  they  themselves  say  ?  He  converted 
the  elements,  which  waited  on  his  command,  into 


Sbaftgpeare;  or,  tbe  poet  221 

entertainments.  He  was  master  of  the  revels  to 
mankind.  Is  it  not  as  if  one  should  have,  through 
majestic  powers  of  science,  the  comets  given  into 
his  hand,  or  the  planets  and  their  moons,  and 
should  draw  them  from  their  orbits  to  glare  with 
the  municipal  fireworks  on  a  holiday  night,  and 
advertise  in  all  towns,  "very  superior  pyrotechny 
this  evening ! ' '  Are  the  agents  of  nature,  and 
the  power  to  understand  them,  worth  no  more 
than  a  street  serenade,  or  the  breath  of  a  cigar  ? 
One  remembers  again  the  trumpet-text  in  the 
Koran — '*The  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  all 
that  is  between  them,  think  ye  we  have  created 
them  in  jest?"  As  long  as  the  question  is  of 
talent  and  mental  power,  the  world  of  men  has 
not  his  equal  to  show.  But  when  the  question 
is  to  life,  and  its  materials,  and  its  auxiliaries,  how 
does  he  profit  me?  What  does  it  signify?  It  is 
but  a  Twelfth  Night,  or  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream,  or  a  Winter  Evening's  Tale:  what  sig- 
nifies another  picture  more  or  less?  The  Egyptian 
verdict  of  the  Shakspeare  Societies  comes  to  mind, 
that  he  was  a  jovial  actor  and  manager.  I  can 
not  marry  this  fact  to  his  verse.  Other  admirable 
men  have  led  lives  in  some  sort  of  keeping  with » 
their  thought ;  but  this  man,  in  wide  contrast. 
Had  he  been  less,  had  he  reached  only  the  com- 
15 


222  "Representative  Itsen 

mon  measure  of  great  authors,  of  Bacon,  Milton, 
Tasso,  Cervantes,  we  might  leave  the  fact  in  the 
twilight  of  human  fate :  but,  that  this  man  of 
men,  he  who  gave  to  the  science  of  mind  a  new 
and  larger  subject  than  had  ever  existed,  and 
planted  the  standard  of  humanity  some  furlongs 
forward  into  Chaos, — that  he  should  not  be  wise 
for  himself, — it  must  even  go  into  the  world's 
history,  that  the  best  poet  led  an  obscure  and  pro- 
fane life,  using  his  genius  for  the  public  amuse- 
ment. 

Well,  other  men,  priest  and  prophet,  Israelite, 
German,  and  Swede,  beheld  the  same  objects: 
they  also  saw  through  them  that  which  was  con- 
tained. And  to  what  purpose?  The  beauty 
straightway  vanishes;  they  read  commandments, 
all-excluding  mountainous  duty ;  an  obligation, 
a  sadness,  as  of  piled  mountains,  fell  on  them,  and 
life  became  ghastly,  joyless,  a  pilgrim's  progress, 
a  probation,  beleaguered  round  with  doleful  histo- 
ries of  Adam's  fall  and  curse,  behind  us ;  with 
doomsdays  and  purgatorial  and  penal  fires  before 
us  ;  and  the  heart  of  the  seer  and  the  heart  of  the 
listener  sank  in  them. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  these  are  half-views  of 
half-men.  The  world  still  wants  its  poet-priest,  a 
reconciler,  who  shall  not  trifle  with  Shakspeare  the 


Sbafc6pcare;  or,  tbc  poet  223 

player,  nor  shall  grope  in  graves  with  Swedenborg 
the  mourner ;  but  who  shall  see,  speak,  and  act, 
with  equal  inspiration.  For  knowledge  will 
brighten  the  sunshine;  right  is  more  beautiful 
than  private  affection  ;  and  love  is  compatible 
with  universal  wisdom. 


NAPOLEON ; 


OR, 


THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD. 


VI. 

Napoleon ;  or,  The  Man  of  The  World. 


Among  the  eminent  persons  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  Bonaparte  is  far  the  best  known,  and  the 
most  powerful;  and  owes  his  predominance  to 
the  fidelity  with  which  he  expresses  the  tone  of 
thought  and  belief,  the  aims  of  the  masses  of 
active  and  cultivated  men.  It  is  Swedenborg's 
theory,  that  every  organ  is  made  up  of  homo- 
geneous particles:  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  expressed, 
every  whole  is  made  of  similars ;  that  is,  the 
lungs  are  composed  of  infinitely  small  lungs ;  the 
liver,  of  infinitely  small  livers;  the  kidney,  of 
little  kidneys,  &c.  Following  this  analogy,  if  any 
man  is  found  to  carry  with  him  the  power  and 
affections  of  vast  numbers,  if  Napoleon  is  France, 
if  Napoleon  is  Europe,  it  is  because  the  people 
whom  he  sways  are  little  Napoleons. 
227 


228  •Representative  /Ren 

In  our  society,  there  is  a  standing  antagonism 
between  the  conservative  and  the  democratic 
classes ;  between  those  who  have  made  their  for- 
tunes, and  the  young  and  the  poor  who  have 
fortunes  to  make  ;  between  the  interests  of  dead 
labor, — that  is,  the  labor  of  hands  long  ago  still 
in  the  grave,  which  labor  is  now  entombed  in 
money  stocks,  or  in  land  and  buildings  owned  by 
idle  capitalists, — and  the  interests  of  living  labor, 
which  seeks  to  possess  itself  of  land,  and  build- 
ings, and  money  stocks.  The  first  class  is  timid, 
selfish,  illiberal,  hating  innovation,  and  contin- 
ually losing  numbers  by  death.  The  second  class 
is  selfish  also,  encroaching,  bold,  self-relying, 
always  outnumbering  the  other,  and  recruiting  its 
numbers  every  hour  by  births.  It  desires  to  keep 
open  every  avenue  to  the  competition  of  all,  and 
to  multiply  avenues; — the  class  of  business  men 
in  America,  in  England,  in  France,  and  through- 
out Europe  ;  the  class  of  industry  and  skill.  Na- 
poleon is  its  representative.  The  instinct  of 
active,  brave,  able  men,  throughout  the  middle 
class  every  where,  has  pointed  out  Napoleon  as 
the  incarnate  Democrat.  He  had  their  virtues, 
and  their  vices ;  above  all,  he  had  their  spirit  or 
aim.  That  tendency  is  material,  pointing  at  a 
sensual  success,  and  employing  the   richest  and 


•fflapoleon;  or,  tbe  ^an  ot  tbc  'QBlorl&   229 

most  various  means  to  that  end  ;  conversant  with  1 
mechanical  powers,  highly  intellectual,  widely 
and  accurately  learned  and  skilful,  but  subordi- 
nating all  mtellectual  and  spiritual  forces  into 
means  to  a  material  success.  To  be  the  rich  man, 
is  the  end.  *' God  has  granted,"  says  the  Ko- 
ran, '*to  every  people  a  prophet  in  its  own 
tongue."  Paris,  and  London,  and  New  York, 
the  spirit  of  commerce,  of  money,  and  material 
power,  were  also  to  have  their  prophet ;  and  Bon- 
aparte was  qualified  and  sent. 

Every  one  of  the  million  readers  of  anecdotes, 
or  memoirs,  or  lives  of  Napoleon,  delights  in  the 
page,  because  he  studies  in  it  his  own  history.  Na- 
poleon is  thoroughly  modern,  and,  at  the  highest 
point  of  his  fortunes,  has  the  very  spirit  of  the 
newspapers.  He  is  no  saint, — to  use  his  own 
word,  "  no  capuchin,"  and  he  is  no  hero,  in  the 
high  sense.  The  man  in  the  street  finds  in  him 
the  qualities  and  powers  of  other  men  in  the 
street.  He  finds  him,  like  himself,  by  birth  a  citi- 
zen, who,  by  very  intelligible  merits,  arrived  at 
such  a  commanding  position,  that  he  could  in- 
dulge all  those  tastes  which  the  comman  man  pos- 
sesses, but  is  obliged  to  conceal  and  deny:  good 
society,  good  books,  fast  travelling,  dress,  dinners, 
servants  without  number,  personal  weight,  the  exe- 


230  •Representative  Oscn 

cution  of  his  ideas,  the  standing  in  the  attitude  of 
a  benefactor  to  all  persons  about  him,  the  refined 
enjoyments  of  pictures,  statues,  music,  palaces, 
and  conventional  honors, — precisely  what  is  agree- 
able to  the  heart  of  every  man  in  the  nineteenth 
century, — this  powerful  man  possessed. 

It  is  true  that  a  man  of  Napoleon's  truth  of 
adaptation  to  the  mind  of  the  masses  around  him, 
becomes  not  merely  representative,  but  actually  a 
monopolizer  and  usurper  of  other  minds.  Thus 
Mirabeau  plagiarized  every  good  thought,  every 
good  word,  that  was  spoken  in  France.  Dumont 
relates,  that  he  sat  in  the  gallery  of  the  Conven- 
tion, and  heard  Mirabeau  make  a  speech.  It 
struck  Dumont  that  he  could  fit  it  with  a  pero- 
ration, which  he  wrote  in  pencil  immediately, 
and  showed  to  Lord  Elgin,  who  sat  by  him. 
Lord  Elgin  approved  it,  and  Dumont,  in  the 
evening,  showed  it  to  Mirabeau.  Mirabeau  read 
it,  pronounced  it  admirable,  and  declared  he  would 
incorporate  it  into  his  harangue,  to-morrow,  to 
the  Assembly.  "It  is  impossible,"  said  Dumont, 
"  as,  unfortunately,  I  have  shown  it  to  Lord 
Elgin."  "If  you  have  shown  it  to  Lord  Elgin, 
and  to  fifty  persons  beside,  I  shall  still  speak 
it  to-morrow:"  and  he  did  speak  it,  with 
much    effect,  at    the    next    day's  session.      For 


•ftapolcon ;  or,  tbe  /Ban  ot  tbc  llHlorlO    231 

Mirabeau,  with  his  overpowering  personality,  felt 
that  these  things,  which  his  presence  inspired, 
were  as  much  his  own,  as  if  he  had  said  them, 
and  that  his  adoption  of  them  gave  them  their 
weight.  Much  more  absolute  and  centralizing 
was  the  successor  to  Mirabeau's  popularity,  and 
to  much  more  than  his  predominance  in  France. 
Indeed,  a  man  of  Napoleon's  stamp  almost  ceases 
to  have  a  private  speech  and  opinion.  He  is  so 
largely  receptive,  and  is  so  placed,  that  he  comes 
to  be  a  bureau  for  all  the  intelligence,  wit,  and 
power,  of  the  age  and  country.  He  gains  the 
battle  :  he  makes  the  code  :  he  makes  the  system 
of  weights  and  measures;  he  levels  the  Alps;  he 
builds  the  road.  All  distinguished  engineers, 
savans,  statists,  report  to  him :  so  likewise,  do  all 
good  heads  in  every  kind :  he  adopts  the  best 
measures,  sets  his  stamp  on  them,  and  not  these 
alone,  but  on  every  happy  and  memorable  expres- 
sion. Every  sentence  spoken  by  Napoleon,  and 
every  line  of  his  writing,  deserves  reading,  as  it  is 
the  sense  of  France. 

Bonaparte  was  the  idol  of  common  men, 
because  he  had  in  transcendent  degree  the  qual- 
ities and  powers  of  common  men.  There  is  a 
certain  satisfaction  in  coming  down  to  the  lowest 
ground  of  politics,  for  we  get  rid  of  cant  and 


232  •Representative  /Ren 

hypocrisy.  Bonaparte  wrought,  in  common  with 
that  great  class  he  represented,  for  power  and 
wealth, — but  Bonaparte,  specially,  without  any 
scruple  as  to  the  means.  All  the  sentiments 
which  embarrass  men's  pursuit  of  these  objects, 
he  set  aside.  The  sentiments  were  for  women 
and  children.  Fontanes,  in  1804,  expressed 
Napoleon's  own  sense,  when,  in  behalf  of  the 
Senate,  he  addressed  him, — **Sire,  the  desire  of 
perfection  is  the  worst  disease  that  ever  afflicted 
the  human  mind."  The  advocates  of  liberty, 
and  of  progress,  are  **  ideologists;  " — a  word  of 
contempt  often  in  his  mouth; — **  Necker  is  an 
ideologist:"  **  Lafayette  is  an  ideologist." 

An  Italian  proverb,  too  well  known,  declares 
that,  "  if  you  would  succeed,  you  must  not  be 
too  good."  It  is  an  advantage,  within  certain 
limits,  to  have  renounced  the  dominion  of  the 
sentiments  of  piety,  gratitude,  and  generosity; 
since,  what  was  an  impassable  bar  to  us,  and  still 
is  to  others,  becomes  a  convenient  weapon  for 
our  purposes;  just  as  the  river  which  was  a 
formidable  barrier,  winter  transforms  into  the 
smoothest  of  roads. 

Napoleon  renounced,  once  for  all,  sentiments 
and  affections,  and  would  help  himself  with  his 
hands   and  his  head.     With  him  is  no  miracle, 


flapolcon;  or,  tbc  /Ran  ot  tbc  TIClorlD   233 

and  no  magic.  He  is  a  worker  in  brass,  in  iron, 
in  wood,  in  earth,  in  roads,  in  buildings,  in  money, 
and  in  troops,  and  a  very  consistent  and  wise 
master-workman.  He  is  never  weak  and  literary, 
but  acts  with  the  solidity  and  the  precision  of 
natural  agents.  He  has  not  lost  his  native  sense 
and  sympathy  with  things.  Men  give  way  before 
such  a  man,  as  before  natural  events.  To  be  sure, 
there  are  men  enough  who  are  immersed  in  things, 
as  farmers,  smiths,  sailors,  and  mechanics  gener- 
ally ;  and  we  know  how  real  and  solid  such  men 
appear  in  the  presence  of  scholars  and  gramma- 
rians: but  these  men  ordinarily  lack  the  power  of 
arrangement,  and  are  like  hands  witliout  a  head. 
But  Bonaparte  superadded  to  this  mineral  and 
animal  force,  insight  and  generalization,  so  that 
men  saw  in  him  combined  the  natural  and  the  in- 
tellectual power,  as  if  the  sea  and  land  had  taken 
flesh  and  begun  to  cipher.  Therefore  the  land 
and  sea  seem  to  presuppose  him.  He  came  unto 
his  own,  and  they  received  him.  This  ciphering 
operative  knows  what  he  is  working  with,  and 
what  is  the  product.  He  knew  the  properties  of 
gold  and  iron,  of  wheels  and  ships,  of  troops  and 
diplomatists,  and  required  that  each  should  do 
after  its  kind. 

The  art  of  war  was  the  game  in  which  he  ex- 


234  Vepredcntative  Aen 

erted  his  arithmetic.  It  consisted,  according  to 
him,  in  having  always  more  forces  than  the  ene- 
my, on  the  point  where  the  enemy  is  attacked,  or 
where  he  attacks  :  and  his  whole  talent  is  strained 
by  endless  manoeuvre  and  evolution,  to  march 
always  on  the  enemy  at  an  angle,  and  destroy  his 
forces  in  detail.  It  is  obvious  that  a  very  small 
force,  skilfully  and  rapidly  manoeuvring,  so  as 
always  to  bring  two  men  against  one  at  the  point 
of  engagement,  will  be  an  overmatch  for  a  much 
larger  body  of  men. 

The  times,  his  constitution,  and  his  early  cir- 
cumstances, combined  to  develop  this  pattern 
democrat.  He  had  the  virtues  of  his  class,  and 
the  conditions  for  their  activity.  That  common 
sense,  which  no  sooner  respects  any  end,  than  it 
finds  the  means  to  effect  it';  the  delight  in  the 
use  of  means;  in  the  choice,  simplification,  and 
combining  of  means;  the  directness  and  thor- 
oughness of  his  work  ;  the  prudence  with  which 
all  was  seen,  and  the  energy  with  which  all  was 
done,  make  him  the  natural  organ  and  head  of 
what  I  may  almost  call,  from  its  extent,  the  mod- 
em party. 

Nature  must  have  far  the  greatest  share  in  every 
success,  and  so  in  his.  Such  a  man  was  wanted, 
and  such  a  man  was  born ;  a  man  of  stone  and 


•Wapoleon ;  or,  tbc  rtian  of  tbc  XdorlD   235 

iron,  capable  of  sitting  on  horseback  sixteen  or 
seventeen  hours,  of  going  many  days  together 
without  rest  or  food,  except  by  snatches,  and  with 
the  speed  and  spring  of  a  tiger  in  action  ;  a  man 
not  embarrassed  by  any  scruples;  compact,  in- 
stant, selfish,  prudent,  and  of  a  perception  which 
did  not  suffer  itself  to  be  balked  or  misled  by  any 
pretences  of  others,  or  any  superstition,  or  any 
heat  or  haste  of  his  own.  **  My  hand  of  iron," 
he  said,  *'  was  not  at  the  extremity  of  my  arm  : 
it  was  immediately  connected  with  my  head." 
He  respected  the  f>ower  of  nature  and  fortune, 
and  ascribed  to  it  his  superiority,  instead  of  valu- 
ing himself,  like  inferior  men,  on  his  opinionative- 
ness  and  waging  war  with  nature.  His  favorite 
rhetoric  lay  in  allusion  to  his  star  :  and  he  pleased 
himself,  as  well  as  the  people,  when  he  styled 
himself  the  **  Child  of  Destiny."  **The.y  charge 
me,"  he  said,  '*with  the  commission  of  great 
crimes :  men  of  my  stamp  do  not  commit  crimes. 
Nothing  has  been  more  simple  than  my  elevation  : 
'tis  in  vain  to  ascribe  it  to  intrigue  or  crime :  it 
was  owing  to  the  peculiarity  of  the  times,  and  to 
my  reputation  of  having  fought  well  against  the 
enemies  of  my  country.  I  have  always  marched 
with  the  opinion  of  great  masses,  and  with  events. 
Of  what   use,  then,  would   crimes   be   to    me?" 


236  "Representative  Itsen 

Again  he  said,  speaking  of  his  son,  *'  My  son  can 
not  replace  me ;  I  could  not  replace  myself.  I 
am  the  creature  of  circumstances.  * ' 

He  had  a  directness  of  action  never  before 
combined  with  so  much  comprehension.  He  is  a 
realist,  terrific  to  all  talkers,  and  confused  truth- 
obscuring  persons.  He  sees  where  the  matter 
hinges,  throws  himself  on  the  precise  point  of 
resistance,  and  slights  all  other  considerations. 
He  is  strong  in  the  right  manner,  namely,  by  in- 
sight. He  never  blundered  into  victory,  but  won 
his  battles  in  his  head,  before  he  won  them  on 
the  field.  His  principle  means  are  in  himself.  He 
asks  counsel  of  no  other.  In  1796,  he  writes  to 
the  Directory;  "  I  have  conducted  the  campaign 
without  consulting  any  one.  I  should  have  done 
no  good,  if  I  had  been  under  the  necessity  of 
conforming  to  the  notions  of  another  person.  I 
have  gained  some  advantages  over  superior  forces, 
and  when  totally  destitute  of  every  thing,  because, 
in  the  persuasion  that  your  confidence  was  reposed 
in  me,  my  actions  were  as  prompt  as  my 
thoughts." 

History  is  full,  down  to  this  day,  of  the  im- 
becility of  kings  and  governors.  They  are  a 
class  of  persons  much  to  be  pitied,  for  they  know 
not  what   they  should   do.     The  weavers  strike 


"Wapolcon ;  or,  tbc  Aan  ot  tbc  lldorld    237 

for  bread  ;  and  the  king  and  his  ministers,  not 
knowing  what  to  do,  meet  them  with  bayonets. 
But  Napoleon  understood  his  business.  Here 
was  a  man  who,  in  each  moment  and  emergency, 
knew  what  to  do  next.  It  is  an  immense  comfort 
and  refreshment  to  the  spirits,  not  only  of 
kings,  but  of  citizens.  Few  men  have  any 
next ;  they  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  without 
plan,  and  are  ever  at  the  end  of  their  line, 
and,  after  each  action,  wait  for  an  impulse 
from  abroad.  Napoleon  had  been  the  first  man 
of  the  world,  if  his  ends  had  been  purely  public. 
As  he  is,  he  inspires  confidence  and  vigor  by  the 
extraordinary  unity  of  his  action.  He  is  firm, 
sure,  self-denying,  self-postponing,  sacrificing  every 
thing  to  his  aim, — money,  troops,  generals,  and 
his  own  safety  also,  to  his  aim ;  not  misled,  like 
common  adventurers,  by  the  splendor  of  his  own 
means.  "  Incidents  ought  not  to  govern  policy," 
he  said,  "  but  policy,  incidents."  **  To  be  hurried 
away  by  every  event,  is  to  have  no  political 
system  at  all."  His  victories  were  only  so  many 
doors,  and  he  never  for  a  moment  lost  sight  of 
his  way  onward,  in  the  dazzle  and  uproar  of  the 
present  circumstance.  He  knew  what  to  do,  and 
lie  flew  to  his  mark.  He  would  shorten  a  straight 
line  to  come  at  his  object.  Horrible  anecdotes 
16 


238  IReprcscntative  /Ren 

may,  no  doubt,  be  collected  from  his  history,  of 
the  price  at  which  he  bought  his  successes;  but 
he  must  not  therefore  be  set  down  as  cruel ;  but 
only  as  one  who  knew  no  impediment  to  his 
will ;  not  bloodthirsty,  not  cruel, — but  wo  to 
what  thing  or  person  stood  in  his  way !  Not 
bloodthirsty,  but  not  sparing  of  blood, — and 
pitiless.  He  saw  only  the  object :  the  obstacle 
must  give  way.  "  Sire,  General  Clarke  can  not 
combine  with  General  Junot,  for  the  dreadful  fire 
of  the  Austrian  battery." — '*  Let  him  carry  the 
battery." — *'Sire,  every  regiment  that  approaches 
the  heavy  artillery  is  sacrificed :  Sire,  what 
orders?" — '*  Forward,  forward!"  Seruzier,  a 
colonel  of  artillery,  gives,  in  his  Military  Memoirs ^ 
the  following  sketch  of  a  scene  after  the  battle 
of  Austerlitz. — "At  the  moment  in  which  the 
Russian  army  was  making  its  retreat,  painfully, 
but  in  good  order,  on  the  ice  of  the  lake,  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  came  riding  at  full  speed 
toward  the  artillery.  *  You  are  losing  time,'  he 
cried ;  *fire  upon  those  masses ;  they  must  be 
engulfed ;  fire  upon  the  ice !  '  The  order 
remained  unexecuted  for  ten  minutes.  In  vain 
several  officers  and  myself  were  placed  on  the 
slope  of  a  hill  to  produce  the  effect :  their  balls 
and  mine  rolled  upon  the  ice,  without  breaking  it 


flapolcon ;  or,  tbe  Aan  of  tbc  lIDlorlJ)   239 

up.  Seeing  that,  I  tried  a  simple  method  of 
elevating  light  howitzers.  The  almost  perpendic- 
ular fall  of  the  heavy  projectiles  produced  the 
desired  effect.  My  method  was  immediately 
followed  by  the  adjoining  batteries,  and  in  less 
than  no  time  we  buried"  some*  **  thousands  of 
Russians  and  Austrians  under  the  waters  of  the 
lake." 

In  the  plenitude  of  his  resources,  every  obstacle 
seemed  to  vanish.  **  There  shall  be  no  Alps," 
he  said  ;  and  he  built  his  perfect  roads,  climbing 
by  graded  galleries  their  steepest  precipices,  until 
Italy  was  as  open  to  Paris  as  any  town  in  France. 
He  laid  his  bones  to,  and  wrought  for  his  crown. 
Having  decided  what  was  to  be  done,  he  did  that 
with  might  and  main.  He  put  out  all  his  strength. 
He  risked  everything,  and  spared  nothing,  neither 
ammunition,  nor  money,  nor  troops,  nor  generals, 
nor  himself 

We  like  to  see  every  thing  do  its  office  after  its 
kind,  whether  it  be  a  milch-cow  or  a  rattlesnake; 
and,  if  fighting  be  the  best  mode  of  adjusting 
national  differences  (as  large  majorities  of  men 
seem  to  agree),  certainly  Bonaparte  was  right  in 

*As  I  quote  at  second  hand,  and  cannot  procure  Semzier,  I 
dare  not  adopt  the  high  figure  I  find. 


240  "RcprcBentative  Oscn 

making  it  thorough.  "The  grand  principle  of 
war,"  he  said,  '*was,  that  an  army  ought  always 
to  be  ready,  by  day  and  by  night,  and  at  all 
hours,  to  make  all  the  resistance  it  is  capable  of 
making."  He  never  economized  his  ammuni- 
tion, but,  on  a  hostile  position,  rained  a  torrent 
of  iron, — shells,  balls,  grape-shot, — to  annihilate 
all  defence.  On  any  point  of  resistance,  he  con- 
centrated squadron  on  squadron  in  overwhelming 
numbers,  until  it  was  swept  out  of  existence.  To 
a  regiment  of  horse-chasseurs  at  Lobenstein,  two 
days  before  the  battle  of  Jena,  Napoleon  said, 
"My  lads,  you  must  not  fear  death  ;  when  soldiers 
brave  death,  they  drive  him  into  the  enemy's 
ranks."  In  the  fury  of  assault,  he  no  more  spared 
himself.  He  went  to  the  edge  of  his  possibility. 
It  is  plain  that  in  Italy  he  did  what  he  could,  and 
all  that  he  could.  He  came,  several  times,  with- 
in an  inch  of  ruin ;  and  his  own  person  was  all 
but  lost.  He  was  flung  into  the  marsh  at  Areola. 
The  Austrians  were  between  him  and  his  troops, 
in  the  melee,  and  he  was  brought  off  with  desper- 
ate efforts.  At  Lonato,  and  at  other  places,  he 
was  on  the  point  of  being  taken  prisoner.  He 
fought  sixty  battles.  He  had  never  enough.  Each 
victory  was  a  new  weapon.  "My  power  would 
fall,  were  I  not  to  support  it  by  new  achievements. 


"Kapoleon ;  or,  tbe  Aan  ot  tbc  "OdotlJ)   241 

Conquest  has  made  me  what  I  am,  and  conquest 
must  maintain  me."  He  felt,  with  every  wise 
man,  that  as  much  life  is  needed  for  conservation 
as  for  creation.  We  are  always  in  peril,  always  in 
a  bad  plight,  just  on  the  edge  of  destruction,  and 
only  to  be  saved  by  invention  and  courage. 
■  This  vigor  was  guarded  and  tempered  by  the  , 
coldest  prudence  and  punctuality.  A  thunderbolt 
in  the  attack,  he  was  found  invulnerable  in  his 
intrenchments.  His  very  attack  was  never  the 
inspiration  of  courage,  but  the  result  of  calcula- 
tion. His  idea  of  the  best  defence  consists  in 
being  still  the  attacking  party.  **My  ambition,*' 
he  says,  **was  great,  but  was  of  a  cold  na- 
ture.*' In  one  of  his  conversations  with  Las 
Casas,  he  remarked,  **  As  to  moral  courage,  I 
have  rarely  met  with  the  two-o'clock-in-the- 
morning  kind :  I  mean  unprepared  courage,  that 
which  is  necessary  on  an  unexpected  occasion ; 
and  which,  in  spite  of  the  most  unforeseen  events, 
leaves  full  freedom  of  judgment  and  decision:" 
and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  he  was 
himself  eminently  endowed  with  this  '*  two- 
o' clock-in -the -morning  courage,  and  that  he  had 
met  with  few  persons  equal  to  himself  in  this 
respect." 

Every  thing  depended  on  the  nicety  of  his  com- 


«42  1Reprc6cntativc  Aen 

binations,  and  the  stars  were  not  more  punctual 
than  his  arithmetic.  His  personal  attention  dc- 
Ji  scended  to  the  smallest  particulars.  **  At  Monte- 
bello,  I  ordered  Kellermann  to  attack  with  eight 
hundred  horse,  and  with  these  he  separated  the 
six  thousand  Hungarian  grenadiers,  before  the 
very  eyes  of  the  Austrian  cavalry.  This  cavalry 
was  half  a  league  off,  and  required  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  to  arrive  on  the  field  of  action ;  and  I 
have  observed,  that  it  is  always  these  quarters  of 
an  hour  that  decide  the  fate  of  a  battle."  ** Be- 
fore he  fought  a  battle,  Bonaparte  thought  little 
about  what  he  should  do  in  case  of  success,  but  a 
great  deal  about  what  he  should  do  in  case  of  a 
reverse  of  fortune."  The  same  prudence  and 
good  sense  mark  all  his  behavior.  His  instruc- 
tions to  his  secretary  at  the  Tuilleries  are  worth 
remembering.  *'  During  the  night,  enter  my 
chamber  as  seldom  as  possible.  Do  not  awake 
me  when  you  have  any  good  news  to  communi- 
cate ;  with  that  there  is  no  hurry.  But  when  you 
bring  bad  news,  rouse  me  instantly,  for  then  there 
is  not  a  moment  to  be  lost."  It  was  a  whimsical 
economy  of  the  same  kind  which  dictated  his 
practice,  when  general  in  Italy,  in  regard  to  his 
burdensome  correspondence.  He  directed  Bour- 
ienne  to   leave    all    letters    unopened    for   three 


"ilapolcon ;  or,  tbc  /l^an  of  tbe  "CClorlD   243 

weeks,  and  then  observed  with  satisfaction  how 
large  a  part  of  the  correspondence  had  thus  dis- 
posed of  itself,  and  no  longer  required  an  answer. 
His  achievement  of  business  was  immense,  and 
enlarges  the  known  powers  of  man.  There  have 
been  many  working  kings,  from  Ulysses  to  Wil- 
liam of  Orange,  but  none  who  accomplished  a 
tithe  of  this  man's  performance. 

To  these  gifts  of  nature,  Napoleon  added  the 
advantage  of  having  been  bom  to  a  private  and 
humble  fortune.  In  his  latter  days,  he  had  the 
weakness  of  wishing  to  add  to  his  crowns  and 
badges  the  prescription  of  aristocracy:  but  he 
knew  his  debt  to  his  austere  education,  and  made 
no  secret  of  his  contempt  for  the  born  kings,  and 
for  **  the  hereditary  asses,"  as  he  coarsely  styled 
the  Bourbons.  He  said  that,  **in  their  exile,  they 
had  learned  nothing,  and  forgot  nothing."  Bon- 
aparte had  passed  through  all  the  degrees  of  mili- 
tary service,  but  also  was  citizen  before  he  was 
emperor,  and  so  has  the  key  to  citizenship.  His 
remarks  and  estimates  discover  the  information 
and  justness  of  measurement  of  the  middle  class. 
Those  who  had  to  deal  with  him,  found  that  he 
was  not  to  be  imposed  upon,  but  could  cipher  as 
well  as  another  man.  This  appears  in  all  parts 
of  his  Memoirs,  dictated  at  St.   Helena.     When 


244  "Representative  fl^en 

the  expenses  of  the  empress,  of  his  household,  of 
his  palaces,  had  accumulated  great  debts,  Napoleon 
examined  the  bills  of  the  creditors  himself, 
detected  overcharges  and  errors,  and  reduced  the 
claims  by  considerable  sums. 

His  grand  weapon,  namely,  the  millions  whom 
he  directed,  he  owed  to  the  representative  char- 
acter which  clothed  him.  He  interests  us  as  he 
stands  for  France  and  for  Europe  ;  and  he  exists 
as  captain  and  king,  only  as  far  as  the  Revolution, 
or  the  interest  of  the  industrious  masses,  found 
an  organ  and  a  leader  in  him.  In  the  social 
interests,  he  knew  the  meaning  and  value  of 
labor,  and  threw  himself  naturally  on  that  side. 
I  like  an  incident  mentioned  by  one  of  his  biog- 
raphers at  St.  Helena.  "When  walking  with 
Mrs.  Balcombe,  some  servants,  carrying  heavy 
boxes,  passed  by  on  the  road,  and  Mrs.  Balcombe 
desired  them,  in  rather  an  angry  tone,  to  keep 
back.  Napoleon  interfered,  saying,  '  Respect  the 
burden.  Madam.*"  In  the  time  of  the  empire, 
he  directed  attention  to  the  improvement  and 
embellishment  of  the  markets  of  the  capital. 
**  The  market-place,"  he  said,  **  is  the  Louvre  of 
the  common  people,"  The  principal  works  that 
have  survived  him  are  his  magnificent  roads. 
He  filled  the  troops  with  his  spirit,  and  a  sort 


Dapoleon;  or,  tbe  Aan  ot  tbe  TIQlorld   245 

of  freedom  and  companionship  grew  up  between 
him  and  them,  which  the  forms  of  his  court 
never  permitted  between  the  officers  and  himself. 
They  performed,  under  his  eye,  that  which  no 
others  could  do.  The  best  document  of  his 
relation  to  his  troops  is  the  order  of  the  day 
on  the  morning  of  the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  in 
which  Napoleon  promises  the  troops  that  he  will 
keep  his  person  out  of  reach  of  fire.  This  decla- 
ration, which  is  the  reverse  of  that  ordinarily 
made  by  generals  and  sovereigns  on  the  eve  of  a 
battle,  sufficiently  explains  the  devotion  of  the 
army  to  their  leader. 

But  though  there  is  in  particulars  this  identity 
between  Napoleon  and  the  mass  of  the  people, 
his  real  strength  lay  in  their  conviction  that  he 
was  their  representative  in  his  genius  and  aims, 
not  only  when  he  courted,  but  when  he  con- 
trolled and  even  when  he  decimated  them  by  his 
conscriptions.  He  knew,  as  well  as  any  Jacobin 
in  France,  how  to  philosophize  on  liberty  and 
equality ;  and,  when  allusion  was  made  to  the  pre- 
cious blood  of  centuries,  which  was  spilled  by  the 
killing  of  the  Due  d'Enghien,  he  suggested  "Neither 
is  my  blood  ditch-water.  *  *  The  people  felt  that  no 
longer  the  throne  was  occupied,  and  the  land  sucked 
of  its  nourishment,  by  a  small  class  of  legitimates. 


246  IRepresentatirc  Oscn 

secluded  from  all  community  with  the  children 
of  the  soil,  and  holding  the  ideas  and  supersti- 
tions of  a  long-forgotten  state  of  society.  Instead 
of  that  vampyre,  a  man  of  themselves  held,  in  the 
Tuilleries,  knowledge  and  ideas  like  their  own, 
opening,  of  course,  to  them  and  their  children,  all 
places  of  power  and  trust.  The  day  of  sleepy, 
selfish  policy,  ever  narrowing  the  means  and  oppor- 
tunities of  young  men,  was  ended,  and  a  day  of 
expansion  and  demand  was  come.  A  market  for 
all  the  powers  and  productions  of  man  was  opened ; 
brilliant  prizes  glittered  in  the  eyes  of  youth  and 
talent.  The  old,  iron-bound,  feudal  France  was 
changed  into  a  young  Ohio  or  New  York ;  and 
those  who  smarted  under  the  immediate  rigors  of 
the  new  monarch,  pardoned  them,  as  the  necessary 
severities  of  the  military  system  which  had  driven 
out  the  oppressor.  And  even  when  the  majority 
of  the  people  had  begun  to  ask,  whether  they  had 
really  gained  anything  under  the  exhausting  levies 
of  men  and  money  of  the  new  master, — the  whole 
talent  of  the  country,  in  every  rank  and  kindred, 
took,  his  part,  and  defended  him  as  its  natural 
patron.  In  1814,  when  advised  to  rely  on  the 
higher  classes.  Napoleon  said  to  those  around  him, 
''Gentlemen,  in  the  situation  in  which  I  stand, 
my  only  nobility  is  the  rabble  of  the  Faubourgs.*' 


"Wapolcon;  or,  tbc  /ftan  ot  tbe  'Waorl&    247 

Napoleon  met  this  natural  expectation.  The 
necessity  of  his  position  required  a  hospitality  to 
every  sort  of  talent,  and  its  appointment  to  trusts; 
and  his  feeling  went  along  with  this  policy. 
Like  every  superior  person,  he  undoubtedly  felt 
a  desire  for  men  and  compeers,  and  a  wish  to 
measure  his  power  with  other  masters,  and  an 
impatience  of  fools  and  underlings.  In  Italy,  he 
sought  for  men,  and  found  none.  '*Good  God  !" 
he  said,  **how  rare  men  are!  There  are  eighteen 
millions  in  Italy,  and  I  have  with  difficulty  found 
two, — Dandolo  and  Melzi."  In  later  years,  with 
larger  experience,  his  respect  for  mankind  was 
not  increased.  In  a  moment  of  bitterness,  he 
said,  to  one  of  his  oldest  friends,  **Men  deserve 
the  contempt  with  which  they  inspire  me.  I 
have  only  to  put  some  gold  lace  on  the  coat  of 
my  virtuous  republicans,  and  they  immediately 
become  just  what  I  wish  them."  This  impa- 
tience at  levity  was,  however,  an  oblique  tribute 
of  respect  to  those  able  persons  who  commanded 
his  regard,  not  only  when  he  found  them  friends 
and  coadjutors,  but  also  when  they  resisted  his 
will.  He  could  not  confound  Fox  and  Pitt, 
Carnot,  Lafayette,  and  Bernadotte  with  the  dan- 
glers of  his  court ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  detrac- 
tion   which  his   systematic   egotism   dictated   to- 


248  "Kcprcsentativc  fl^cn 

ward  the  great  captains  who  conquered  with  and 
for  him,  ample  acknowledgments  are  made  by 
him  to  Lannes,  Duroc,  Kleber,  Dessaix,  Massena, 
Murat,  Ney,  and  Augereau.  If  he  felt  himself 
their  patron,  and  the  founder  of  their  fortunes, 
as  when  he  said,  ''I  made  my  generals  out  of 
mud,"  he  could  not  hide  his  satisfaction  in  re- 
ceiving from  them  a  seconding  and  support  com- 
mensurate with  the  grandeur  of  his  enterprise.  In 
the  Russian  campaign,  he  was  so  much  impressed 
by  the  courage  and  resources  of  Marshal  Ney, 
that  he  said,  *'I  have  two  hundred  millions  in  my 
coffers,  and  I  would  give  them  all  for  Ney."  The 
characters  which  he  has  drawn  of  several  of  his 
marshals  are  discriminating,  and,  though  they  did 
not  content  the  insatiable  vanity  of  French  offi- 
cers, are,  no  doubt,  substantially  just.  And,  in 
fact,  every  species  of  merit  was  sought  and  ad- 
Auuiced  under  his  government.  "I  know,"  he 
said,  "the  depth  and  draught  of  water  of  every 
one  of  my  generals."  Natural  power  was  sure  to 
be  well  received  at  his  court.  Seventeen  men,  in 
his  time,  were  raised  from  common  soldiers  to  the 
rank  of  king,  marshal,  duke,  or  general;  and  the 
crosses  of  his  Legion  of  Honor  were  given  to 
personal  valor,  and  not  to  family  connexion. 
"When  soldiers  have  been  baptized  in  the  fire  of 
a  battle-field,  they  have  all  one  rank  in  my  eyes.** 


•napoleon ;  or,  tbe  /ftan  of  tbc  TraorlD    249 

When  a  natural  king  becomes  a  titular  king, 
everybody  is  pleased  and  satisfied.  The  Revolu- 
tion entitled  the  strong  populace  of  the  Faubourg 
St.  Antoine,  and  every  horse-boy  and  powder- 
monkey  in  the  army,  to  look  on  Napoleon,  as 
flesh  of  his  flesh,  and  the  creature  of  his  party: 
but  there  is  something  in  the  success  of  grand 
talent  which  enlists  an  universal  sympathy.  For, 
in  the  prevalence  of  sense  and  spirit  over  stupidity 
and  malversation,  all  reasonable  men  have  an 
interest;  and,  as  intellectual  beings,  we  feel  the 
air  purified  by  the  electric  shock,  when  material 
force  is  overthrown  by  intellectual  energies.  As 
soon  as  we  are  removed  out  of  the  reach  of  local 
and  accidental  partialities,  man  feels  that  Napoleon 
fights  for  him;  these  are  honest  victories;  this 
strong  steam-engine  does  our  work.  Whatever 
appeals  to  the  imagination,  by  transcending  the 
ordinary  limits  of  human  ability,  wonderfully  en- 
courages and  liberates  us.  This  capacious  head, 
revolving  and  disposing  sovereignly  trains  of 
affairs,  and  animating  such  multitudes  of  agents; 
this  eye,  which  looked  through  Europe;  this 
prompt  invention ;  this  inexhaustible  resource ; — 
what  events!  what  romantic  pictures !  what  strange 
situations ! — when  spying  the  Alps,  by  a  sunset  in 
the  Sicilian  sea ;  drawing  up  his  army  for  battle, 


250  •Representative  liscn 

in  sight  of  the  Pyramids,  and  saying  to  his  troops, 
"From  the  tops  of  those  pyramids,  forty  centuries 
look  down  on  you;"  fording  the  Red  Sea;  wading 
in  the  gulf  of  the  Isthmus  of  Suez.  On  the  shore 
of  Ptolemais,  gigantic  projects  agitated  him.  **Had 
Acre  fallen,  I  should  have  changed  the  face  of  the 
world."  His  army,  on  the  night  of  the  battle  of 
Austerlitz,  which  was  the  anniversary  of  his  in- 
auguration as  Emperor,  presented  him  with  a 
bouquet  of  forty  standards  taken  in  the  fight. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  little  puerile,  the  pleasure  he  took 
in  making  these  contrasts  glaring;  as  when  he 
pleased  himself  with  making  kings  wait  in  his 
antechambers,  at  Tilsit,  at  Paris,  and  at  Erfurt. 

We  cannot,  in  the  universal  imbecility,  inde- 
cision, and  indolence  of  men,  sufficiently  congratu- 
late ourselves  on  this  strong  and  ready  actor,  who 
took  occasion  by  the  beard,  and  showed  us  how 
much  may  be  accomplished  by  the  mere  force  of 
such  virtues  as  all  men  possess  in  less  degrees; 
namely,  by  punctuality,  by  personal  attention,  by 
courage,  and  thoroughness.  **The  Austrians,"  he 
said,  **do  not  know  the  value  of  time."  I  should 
cite  him,  in  his  earlier  years,  as  a  model  of  pru- 
dence. His  power  does  not  consist  in  any  wild 
or  extravagant  force;  in  any  enthusiasm,  like 
Mahomet's ;  or  singular  power  of  persuasion ;  but 


napoleon ;  or,  tbe  flSan  ot  tbe  •Qaorl^    251 

in  the  exercise  of  common  sense  on  each  emer- 
gency, instead  of  abiding  by  rules  and  customs. 
The  lesson  he  teaches  is  that  which  vigor 
always  teaches, — that  there  is  always  room  for  it. 
To  what  heaps  of  cowardly  doubts  is  not  that 
man's  life  an  answer.  When  he  appeared,  it 
was  the  belief  of  all  military  men  that  there 
could  be  nothing  new  in  war;  as  it  is  the  be- 
lief of  men  to-day,  that  nothing  new  can  be  under- 
taken in  politics,  or  in  church,  or  in  letters,  or 
in  trade,  or  in  farming,  or  in  our  social  manners 
and  customs;  and  as  it  is,  at  all  times,  the  be- 
lief of  society  that  the  world  is  used  up.  But 
Bonaparte  knew  better  than  society;  and,  more- 
over, knew  that  he  knew  better.  I  think  all  men 
know  better  than  they  do ;  know  that  the  insti- 
tutions we  so  volubly  commend  are  go-carts  and 
baubles ;  but  they  dare  not  trust  their  presenti- 
ments. Bonaparte  relied  on  his  own  sense,  and 
did  not  care  a  bean  for  other  people's.  The 
world  treated  his  novelties  just  as  it  treats  every- 
body's novelties, — made  infinite  objection;  mus- 
tered all  the  impediments;  but  he  snapped  his 
finger  at  their  objections.  "What  creates  great 
difficulty,"  he  remarks,  *'in  the  profession  of  the 
land-commander,  is  the  necessity  of  feeding  so 
many  men  and  animals.     If  he  allows  himself  to 


2S2  •Representative  /Ren 

be  guided  by  the  commissaries,  he  will  never  stir, 
and  all  his  expeditions  will  fail."  An  example  of 
his  common  sense  is  what  he  says  of  the  passage 
of  the  Alps  in  winter,  which  all  writers,  one  re- 
peating after  the  other,  had  described  as  impracti- 
cable. **The  winter,"  says  Napoleon,  *'is  not 
the  most  unfavorable  season  for  the  passage  of 
lofty  mountains.  The  snow  is  then  firm,  the 
weather  settled,  and  there  is  nothing  to  fear  from 
avalanches,  the  real  and  only  danger  to  be  appre- 
hended in  the  Alps.  On  those  high  mountains, 
there  are  often  very  fine  days  in  December,  of  a 
dry  cold,  with  extreme  calmness  in  the  air." 
Read  his  account,  too,  of  the  way  in  which  bat- 
tles are  gained.  "In  all  battles,  a  moment  occurs, 
when  the  bravest  troops,  after  having  made  the 
greatest  efforts,  feel  inclined  to  run.  That  terror 
proceeds  from  a  want  of  confidence  in  their  own 
courage;  and  it  only  requires  a  slight  oppor- 
tunity, a  pretence,  to  restore  confidence  to  them. 
The  art  is  to  give  rise  to  the  opportunity,  and  to 
invent  the  pretence.  At  Areola,  I  won  the  battle 
with  twenty-five  horsemen.  I  seized  that  moment 
of  lassitude,  gave  every  man  a  trumpet,  and  gained 
the  day  with  this  handful.  You  see  that  two  armies 
are  two  bodies  which  meet,  and  endeavor  to 
frighten  each  other :  a  moment  of  panic  occurs,  and 


•flapolcon ;  or,  tbe  /ftan  of  tbc  "CClorlJ)    253 

that  moment  must  be  turned  to  advantage.  When 
a  man  has  been  present  in  many  actions,  he  dis- 
tinguishes that  moment  without  difficulty  j  it  is 
as  easy  as  casting  up  an  addition." 

This  deputy  of  the  nineteenth  century  added 
to  his  gifts  a  capacity  for  speculation  on  general 
topics.  He  delighted  in  running  through  the 
range  of  practical,  of  literary,  and  of  abstract 
questions.  His  opinion  is  always  original,  and  to 
the  purpose.  On  the  voyage  to  Egypt,  he  liked, 
after  dinner,  to  fix  on  three  or  four  persons  to 
support  a  proposition,  and  as  many  to  oppose  it. 
He  gave  a  subject,  and  the  discussions  turned 
on  questions  of  religion,  the  different  kinds  of 
government,  and  the  art  of  war.  One  day,  he 
asked,  whether  the  planets  were  inhabited?  On 
another,  what  was  the  age  of  the  world?  Then 
he  proposed  to  consider  the  probability  of  the  de- 
struction of  the  globe,  either  by  water  or  by  fire; 
at  another  time,  the  truth  or  fallacy  of  presenti- 
ments, and  the  interpretation  of  dreams.  He 
was  very  fond  of  talking  of  religion.  In  1806,  he 
conversed  with  Fournier,  bishop  of  Montpellier, 
on  matters  of  theology.  There  were  two  points 
on  which  they  could  not  agree,  viz.,  that  of  hell, 
and  that  of  salvation  out  of  the  pale  of  the  church. 
The  Emperor  told  Josephine,  that  he  disputed 
17 


254  "Representative  flSen 

like  a  devil  on  these  two  points,  on  which  the 
bishop  was  inexorable.  To  the  philosophers  he 
readily  yielded  all  that  was  proved  against  religion 
as  the  work  of  men  and  time ;  but  he  would  not 
hear  of  materialism.  One  fine  night,  on  deck, 
amid  a  clatter  of  materialism,  Bonaparte  pointed 
to  the  stars,  and  said,  *' You  may  talk  as  long  as 
you  please,  gentlemen,  but  who  made  all  that?  " 
He  delighted  in  the  conversation  of  men  of 
science,  particularly  of  Monge  and  Berthollet; 
but  the  men  of  letters  he  slighted;  **  they  were 
manufacturers  of  phrases."  Of  medicine,  too, 
he  was  fond  of  talking,  and  with  those  of  its 
practitioners  whom  he  most  esteemed, — with  Cor- 
visart  at  Paris,  and  with  Antonomarchi  at  St. 
Helena.  **  Believe  me,"  he  said  to  the  last,  **  we 
had  better  leave  off  all  these  remedies:  life  is  a 
fortress  which  neither  you  nor  I  know  anything 
about.  Why  throw  obstacles  in  the  way  of  its 
defence  ?  Its  own  means  are  superior  to  all  the 
apparatus  of  your  laboratories.  Corvisart  can- 
didly agreed  with  me,  that  all  your  filthy  mixtures 
are  good  for  nothing.  Medicine  is  a  collection  of 
uncertain  prescriptions,  the  results  of  which,  taken 
collectively,  are  more  fatal  than  useful  to  man- 
kind. Water,  air,  and  cleanliness,  are  the  chief 
articles  in  my  pharmacopeia. ' ' 


•Kapolcon ;  or,  tbe  Aan  of  tbc  TKlorlD    255 

His  memoirs,  dictated  to  Count  Montholon  and 
General  Gourgaud,  at  St.  Helena,  have  great 
value,  after  all  the  deduction  that,  it  seems,  is  to 
be  made  from  them,  on  account  of  his  known 
disingenuousness.  He  has  the  good-nature  of 
strength  and  conscious  superiority.  I  admire  his 
simple,  clear  narrative  of  his  battles ; — good  as 
Caesar's;  his  good-natured  and  sufficiently  re- 
spectful account  of  Marshal  Wurmser  and  his 
other  antagonists,  and  his  own  equality  as  a  writer 
to  his  varying  subject.  The  most  agreeable  por- 
tion is  the  Campaign  in  Egypt. 

He  had  hours  of  thought  and  wisdom.  In  inter- 
vals of  leisure,  either  in  the  camp  or  the  palace. 
Napoleon  appears  as  a  man  of  genius,  directing 
on  abstract  questions  the  native  appetite  for  truth, 
and  the  impatience  of  words,  he  was  wont  to 
show  in  war.  He  could  enjoy  every  play  of 
invention,  a  romance,  a  don  moty  as  well  as  a 
stratagem  in  a  campaign.  He  delighted  to  fasci- 
nate Josephine  and  her  ladies,  in  a  dim-lighted 
apartment,  by  the  terrors  of  a  fiction,  to  which 
his  voice  and  dramatic  power  lent  every  addition. 

I  call  Napoleon  the  agent  or  attorney  of  the 
middle  class  of  modern  society ;  of  the  throng 
who  fill  the  markets,  shops,  counting-houses, 
manufactories,  ships,  of  the  modern  world,  aim- 


256  IReprceentativc  /Ren 

ing  to  be  rich.  He  was  the  agitator,  the  de- 
stroyer of  prescription,  the  internal  improver,  the 
liberal,  the  radical  the  inventor  of  means,  the 
opener  of  doors  and  markets,  the  subverter  of 
monopoly  and  abuse.  Of  course,  the  rich  and 
aristocratic  did  not  like  him.  England,  the  cen- 
tre of  capital,  and  Rome  and  Austria,  centres  of 
tradition  and  genealogy,  opposed  him.  The  con- 
sternation of  the  dull  and  conservative  classes, 
the  terror  of  the  foolish  old  men  and  old  women 
of  the  Roman  conclave, — who  in  their  despair 
took  hold  of  any  thing,  and  would  cling  to  red- 
hot  iron, — the  vain  attempts  of  statists  to  amuse 
and  deceive  him,  of  the  emperor  of  Austria  to 
bribe  him  ;  and  the  instinct  of  the  young,  ardent, 
and -active  men,  every  where,  which  pointed  him 
out  as  the  giant  of  tlie  middle  class,  make  his 
history  bright  and  commanding.  He  had  the 
virtues  of  the  masses  of  his  constituents:  he  had 
also  their  vices.  I  am  sorry  that  the  brilliant 
picture  has  its  reverse.  But  that  is  the  fatal 
quality  which  we  discover  in  our  pursuit  of 
wealth,  that  it  is  treacherous,  and  is  bought  by 
the  breaking  or  weakening  of  the  sentiments: 
and  it  is  inevitable  that  we  should  find  the  same 
fact  in  the  history  of  this  champion,  who  pro- 
posed to  himself  simply  a  brilliant  career,  without 
any  stipulation  or  scruple  concerning  the  means* 


flapolcon;  or,  tbe  rtSan  of  tbc  'CClorlo   257 

Bonaparte  was  singularly  destitute  of  generous 
sentiments.  The  highest-placed  individual  in 
the  most  cultivated  age  and  population  of  the 
world, — he  has  not  the  merit  of  common  truth 
and  honesty.  He  is  unjust  to  his  generals; 
egotistic,  and  monopolizing  ;  meanly  stealing  the 
credit  of  their  great  actions  from  Kellermann, 
from  Bernadotte  ;  intriguing  to  involve  his  faith- 
ful Junot  in  hopeless  bankruptcy,  in  order  to 
drive  him  to  a  distance  from  Paris,  because  the 
familiarity  of  his  manners  offends  the  new  pride 
of  his  throne.  He  is  a  boundless  liju:.  The 
official  paper,  his  "  Moniteurs,'*  and  all  his  bul- 
letins, are  proverbs  for  saying  what  he  wished  to 
be  believed ;  and  worse, — he  sat,  in  his  premature 
old  age,  in  his  lonely  island,  coldly  falsifying 
facts,  and  dates,  and  characters,  and  giving  to 
history  a  theatrical  eclat.  Like  all  Frenchmen, 
he  has  a  passion  for  stage  effect.  Every  action 
that  breathes  of  generosity  is  poisoned  by  this 
calculation.  His  star,  his  love  of  glory,  his  doc- 
trine of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  are  all 
French.  "I  must  dazzle  and  astonish.  If  I 
were  to  give  the  liberty  of  the  press,  my  power 
could  not  last  three  days."  To  make  a  great 
noise  is  his  favorite  design.  **A  great  reputation 
is  a  great   noise :  the  more   there  is  made,  the 


258  "Representative  /Ren 

farther  off  it  is  heard.  Laws,  institutions,  mon- 
uments, nations,  all  fall ;  but  the  noise  continues, 
and  resounds  in  after  ages."  His  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality is  simply  fame.  His  theory  of  influence 
is  not  flattering.  * '  There  are  two  levers  for  moving 
men, — interest  and  fear.  Love  is  a  silly  infatua- 
tion, depend  upon  it.  Friendship  is  but  a  name. 
I  love  nobody.  I  do  not  even  love  my  brothers  : 
perhaps  Joseph,  a  little,  from  habit,  and  because 
he  is  my  elder;  and  Duroc,  I  love  him  too;  but 
why? — because  his  character  pleases  me :  he  is 
stern  and  resolute,  and,  I  believe,  the  fellow 
never  shed  a  tear.  For  my  part,  I  know  very 
well  that  I  have  no  true  friends.  As  long  as  I 
continue  to  be  what  I  am,  I  may  have  as  many 
pretended  friends  as  I  please.  Leave  sensibility 
to  women  :  but  men  should  be  firm  in  heart  and 
purpose,  or  they  should  have  nothing  to  do  with 
war  and  government."  He  was  thoroughly  un- 
scrupulous. He  would  steal,  slander,  assassinate, 
drown,  and  poison,  as  his  interest  dictated.  He 
had  no  generosity ;  but  mere  vulgar  hatred :  he 
was  ^  intensely  selfish  :  he  was  perfidious :  he 
cheated  at  cards :  he  was  a  prodigious  gossip  ; 
and  opened  letters;  and  delighted  in  his  infamous 
police ;  and  rubbed  his  hands  with  joy  when  he 
had  intercepted  some  morsel  of  intelligence  con- 


I^apolcon ;  or,  tbc  Aan  of  tbe  TOlorlD    259 

cerning  the  men  and  women  about  him,  boasting 
that  **  he  knew  every  thing;'*  and  interfered 
with  the  cutting  the  dresses  of  the  women ;  and 
listened  after  the  hurrahs  and  the  compliments 
of  the  street,  incognito.  His  manners  were 
coarse.  He  treated  women  with  low  familiarity. 
He  had  the  habit  of  pulling  their  ears  and  pinch- 
ing their  cheeks,  when  he  was  in  good  humor, 
and  of  pulling  the  ears  and  whiskers  of  men,  and 
of  striking  and  horse-play  with  them,  to  his  last 
days.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  listened  at  key 
holes,  or,  at  least,  that  he  was  caught  at  it.  In 
short,  when  you  have  penetrated  through  all  the 
circles  of  power  and  splendor,  you  were  not  deal- 
ing with  a  gentleman,  at  last;  but  with  an  impos- 
tor and  a  rogue:  and  he  fully  deserves  the  epithet 
oi  Jupiter  Scapin^  or  a  sort  of  Scamp  Jupiter. 

In  describing  the  two  parties  into  which  mod- 
ern society  divides  itself, — the  democrat  and  the 
conservative, — I  said,  Bonaparte  represents  the 
Democrat,  or  the  party  of  men  of  business,  against 
the  stationary  or  conservative  party.  I  omitted 
then  to  say,  what  is  material  to  the  statement, 
namely,  that  these  two  parties  differ  only  as  young 
and  old.  The  democrat  is  a  young  conservative; 
the  conservative  is  an  old  democrat.     The  aristo- 


26o  "Representative  /Ren 

crat  is  the  democrat  ripe,  and  gone  to  seed, — be- 
cause both  parties  stand  on  the  one  ground  of  the 
supreme  value  of  property,  which  one  endeavors 
to  get,  and  the  other  to  keep.  Bonaparte  may  be 
said  to  represent  the  whole  history  of  this  party, 
its  youth  and  its  age;  yes,  and  with  poetic  justice, 
its  fate,  in  his  own.  The  counter-revolution,  the 
counter-party,  still  waits  for  its  organ  and  repre- 
sentative, in  a  lover  and  a  man  of  truly  public 
and  universal  aims. 

Here  was  an  experiment,  under  the  most  favor- 
able conditions,  of  the  powers  of  intellect  without 
conscience.  Never  was  such  a  leader  so  endowed, 
and  so  weaponed ;  never  leader  found  such  aids 
and  followers.  And  what  was  the  result  of  this 
vast  talent  and  power,  of  these  immense  armies, 
burned  cities,  squandered  treasures,  immolated 
millions  of  men,  of  this  demoralized  Europe?  It 
came  to  no  result.  All  passed  away,  like  the 
smoke  of  his  artillery,  and  left  no  trace.  He  left 
France  smaller,  poorer,  feebler,  than  he  found  it ; 
and  the  whole  contest  for  freedom  was  to  be  begun 
again.  The  attempt  was,  in  principle,  suicidal. 
France  served  him  with  life,  and  limb,  and  estate, 
as  long  as  it  could  identify  its  interest  with  him  ; 
but  when  men  saw  that  after  victory  was  another 
war ;  after   the  destruction   of  armies,  new  con- 


•Wapoleon ;  or,  tbc  Osm  of  tbc  xaoclD    261 

scriptions  ;  and  they  who  had  toiled  so  desperately 
were  never  nearer  to  the  reward, — they  could  not 
spend  what  they  had  earned,  nor  repose  on  their 
down -beds,  nor  strut  in  their  chateaux, — they 
deserted  him.  Men  found  that  his  absorbing 
egotism  was  deadly  to  all  other  men.  It  resem- 
bled the  torpedo,  which  inflicts  a  succession  of 
shocks  on  any  one  who  takes  hold  of  it,  producing 
spasms  which  contract  the  muscles  of  the  hand,  so 
that  the  man  cannot  open  his  fingers ;  and  the  ani- 
mal inflicts  new  and  more  violent  shocks,  until  he 
paralyzes  and  kills  his  victim.  So,  this  exorbi- 
tant egotist  narrowed,  impoverished,  and  absorbed 
the  power  and  existence  of  those  who  served 
him ;  and  the  universal  cry  of  France,  and  of 
Europe,  in  1814,  was,  *' enough  of  him;"  *' as- 
sez  de  Bonaparte. ' ' 

It  was  not  Bonaparte's  fault.  He  did  all  that 
in  him  lay,  to  live  and  thrive  without  moral  prin- 
ciple. It  was  the  nature  of  things,  the  eternal 
law  of  man  and  of  the  world,  which  baulked  and 
ruined  him ;  and  the  result,  in  a  million  experi- 
ments, will  be  the  same.  Every  experiment,  by 
multitudes  or  by  individuals,  that  has  a  sensual 
and  selfish  aim,  will  fail.  The  pacific  Fourier 
will  be  as  inefficient  as  the  pernicious  Napoleon. 
As  long  as  our  civilization  is  essentially  one   of 


262  "Representative  /ften 

property,  of  fences,  of  exclusiveness,  it  will  be 
mocked  by  delusions.  Our  riches  will  leave  us 
sick ;  there  will  be  bitterness  in  our  laughter,  and 
our  wine  will  burn  our  mouth.  Only  that  good 
profits,  which  we  can  taste  with  all  doors  open^ 
and  which  serves  all  men. 


GOETHE : 

OR, 

THE    WRITER 


VII. 
GOETHE ;  OR,  THE  WRITER. 


I  FIND  a  provision,  in  the  constitution  of  the 
world,  for  the  writer  or  secretary,  who  is  to  report 
the  doings  of  the  miraculous  spirit  of  life  that 
every  where  throbs  and  works.  His  office  is  a  re- 
ception of  the  facts  into  the  mind,  and  then  a 
selection  of  the  eminent  and  characteristic  expe- 
riences. 

Nature  will  be  reported.  All  things  are  engaged 
in  writing  their  history.  The  planet,  the  pebble, 
goes  attended  by  its  shadow.  The  rolling  rock 
leaves  its  scratches  on  the  mountain  ;  the  river,  its 
channel  in  the  soil ;  the  animal,  its  bones  in  the 
stratum ;  the  fern  and  leaf,  their  modest  epitaph 
in  the  coal.  The  falling  drop  makes  its  sculpture 
in  the  sand  or  the  stone.  Not  a  foot  steps  into 
the  snow,  or  along  the  ground,  but  prints,  in 
265 


266  "Representative  /ften 

characters  more  or  less  lasting,  a  map  of  its 
march.  Every  act  of  the  man  inscribes  itself  in 
the  memories  of  his  fellows,  and  in  his  own  man- 
ners and  face.  The  air  is  full  of  sounds  ;  the 
sky,  of  tokens ;  the  ground  is  all  memoranda  and 
signatures ;  and  every  object  covered  over  with 
hints,  which  speak  to  the  intelligent. 

In  nature,  this  self-registration  is  incessant,  and 
the  narrative  is  the  print  of  the  seal.  It  neither 
exceeds  nor  comes  short  of  the  fact.  But  nature 
strives  upward  ;  and,  in  man,  the  report  is  some- 
thing more  than  print  of  the  seal.  It  is  a  new  and 
finer  form  of  the  original.  The  record  is  alive, 
as  that  which  it  recorded  is  alive.  In  man,  the 
memory  is  a  kind  of  looking-glass,  which,  having 
received  the  images  of  surrounding  objects,  is 
touched  with  life,  and  disposes  them  in  a  new 
order.  The  facts  which  transpired  do  not  lie  in 
it  inert ;  but  some  subside,  and  others  shine ;  so 
that  soon  we  have  a  new  picture,  composed  of  the 
eminent  experiences.  The  man  cooperates.  He 
loves  to  communicate ;  and  that  which  is  for  him 
to  say  lies  as  a  load  on  his  heart  until  it  is  deliv- 
ered. But,  besides  the  universal  joy  of  conversa- 
tion, some  men  are  born  with  exalted  powers  for 
this  second  creation.  Men  are  born  to  write. 
The   gardener  saves  every  slip,    and    seed,    and 


<5octbc;  or,  tbe  "CClrftet  267 

peach-stone:  his  vocation  is  to  be  a  planter  of 
plants.  Not  less  does  the  writer  attend  his  affair. 
Whatever  he  beholds  or  experiences,  comes  to  him 
as  a  model,  and  sits  for  its  picture.  He  counts  it 
all  nonsense  that  they  say,  that  some  things  are 
undescribable.  He  believes  that  all  that  can  be 
thought  can  be  written,  first  or  last ;  and  he 
"would  report  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  attempt  it. 
Nothing  so  broad,  so  subtle,  or  so  dear,  but  comes 
therefore  commended  to  his  pen, — and  he  will 
write.  In  his  eyes,  a  man  is  the  faculty  of  re- 
porting, and  the  universe  is  the  possibility  of 
being  reported.  In  conversation,  in  calamity,  he 
iinds  new  materials;  as  our  German  poet  said, 
**some  god  gave  me  the  power  to  paint  what  I 
suffer."  He  draws  his  rents  from  rage  and  pain. 
By  acting  rashly,  he  buys  the  power  of  talking 
wisely.  Vexations,  and  a  tempest  of  passion,  only 
fill  his  sail;  as  the  good  Luther  writes,  **When  I 
am  angry,  I  can  pray  well,  and  preach  well ;"  and 
if  we  knew  the  genesis  of  fine  strokes  of  elo- 
quence, they  might  recall  the  complaisance  of 
Sultan  Amurath,  who  struck  off  some  Persian 
heads,  that  his  physician,  Vesalius,  might  see  the 
spasms  in  the  muscles  of  the  neck.  His  failures 
are  the  preparation  of  his  victories.  A  new 
thought,  or  a  crisis  of  passion,  apprises  him  that 


268  "Representative  ^en 

all  that  he  has  yet  learned  and  written  is  exoteric 
— is  not  the  fact,  but  some  rumor  of  the  fact. 
What  then  ?  Does  he  throw  away  the  pen  ?  No  ; 
he  begins  again  to  describe  in  the  new  light  which 
has  shined  on  him, — if,  by  some  means,  he  may  yet 
save  some  true  word.  Nature  conspires.  What- 
ever can  be  thought  can  be  spoken,  and  still  rises 
for  utterance,  though  to  rude  and  stammering 
organs.  If  they  cannot  compass  it,  it  waits  and 
works,  until,  at  last,  it  moulds  them  to  its  perfect 
will,  and  is  articulated. 

This  striving  after  imitative  expression,  which 
one  meets  everywhere,  is  significant  of  the  aim 
of  nature,  but  is  mere  stenography.  There  are 
higher  degrees,  and  nature  has  more  splendid 
endowments  for  those  whom  she  elects  to  a  supe- 
rior office ;  for  the  class  of  scholars  or  writers, 
who  see  connection  where  the  multitude  see 
fragments,  and  who  are  impelled  to  exhibit 
the  facts  in  order,  and  so  to  supply  the  axis  on 
which  the  frame  of  things  turns.  Nature  has 
dearly  at  heart  the  formation  of  the  speculative 
man,  or  scholar.  It  is  an  end  never  lost  sight  of, 
and  is  prepared  in  the  original  casting  of  things. 
He  is  no  permissive  or  accidental  appearance,  but 
an  organic  agent,  one  of  the  estates  of  the 
realm,  provided  and  prepared,  from  of  old  and 


<3octbe;  or,  tbc  "Oatitcr  269 

from  everlasting,  in  the  knitting  and  contexture 
of  things.  Presentiments,  impulses,  cheer  him. 
There  is  a  certain  heat  in  the  breast,  which  at* 
tends  the  perception  of  a  primary  truth,  which  is 
the  shining  of  the  spiritual  sun  down  into  the 
shaft  of  the  mine.  Every  thought  which  dawns 
on  the  mind,  in  the  moment  of  its  emergence 
announces  its  own  rank, — whether  it  is  some 
whimsy,  or  whether  it  is  a  power. 

If  he  have  his  incitements,  there  is,  on  the 
other  side,  invitation  and  need  enough  of  his 
gift.  Society  has,  at  all  times,  the  same  want, 
namely,  of  one  sane  man  with  adequate  powers 
of  expression  to  hold  up  each  object  of  mono- 
mania in  its  right  relations.  The  ambitious  and 
mercenary  bring  their  last  new  mumbo-jumbo, 
whether  tariff,  Texas,  railroad,  Romanism,  mes- 
merism, or  California ;  and,  by  detaching  the 
object  from  its  relations,  easily  succeed  in  making 
it  seen  in  a  glare;  and  a  multitude  go  mad  about 
it,  and  they  are  not  to  be  reproved  or  cured  by 
the  opposite  multitude,  who  are  kept  from  this 
particular  insanity  by  an  equal  frenzy  on  another 
crotchet.  But  let  one  man  have  the  comprehen- 
sive eye  that  can  replace  this  isolated  prodigy  in 
its  right  neighborhood  and  bearings, — the  illusion 
vanishes,  and  the  returning  reason  of  the  com- 
munity thanks  the  reason  of  the  monitor. 
18 


270  "Representative  flben 

The  scholar  is  the  man  of  the  ages,  but  he 
must  also  wish  with  other  men  to  stand  well 
with  his  contemporaries.  But  there  is  a  certain 
ridicule,  among  superficial  people,  thrown  on  the 
scholars  or  clerisy,  which  is  of  no  import,  unless 
the  scholars  heed  it.  In  this  country,  the  em- 
phasis of  conversation,  and  of  public  opinion, 
commends  the  practical  man  ;  and  the  solid  por- 
tion of  the  community  is  named  with  significant 
respect  in  every  circle.  Our  people  are  of  Bona- 
parte's opinion  concerning  ideologists.  Ideas  are 
subversive  of  social  order  and  comfort,  and  at 
last  make  a  fool  of  the  possessor.  It  is  believed, 
the  ordering  a  cargo  of  goods  from  New  York  to 
Smyrna;  or,  the  running  up  and  down  to  procure 
a  company  of  subscribers  to  set  a-going  five  or 
ten  thousand  spindles;  or,  the  negotiations  of  a 
caucus,  and  the  practising  on  the  prejudices  and 
facility  of  country-people,  to  secure  their  votes  in 
November, — is  practical  and  commendable. 

If  I  were  to  compare  action  of  a  much  higher 
strain  with  a  life  of  contemplation,  I  should  not 
venture  to  pronounce  with  much  confidence  in 
favor  of  the  former.  Mankind  have  such  a  deep 
stake  in  inward  illumination,  that  there  is  much  to 
be  said  by  the  hermit  or  monk  in  defence  of  his 
life  of  thought  and  prayer.     A  certain  partiality. 


(3octbc;  ot,  tbe  xaritcr  271 

a  headiness,  and  loss  of  balance,  is  the  tax  which 
all  action  must  pay.  Act,  if  you  like, — but  you 
do  it  at  your  peril.  Men's  actions  are  too  strong 
for  them.  Show  me  a  man  who  has  acted,  and 
who  has  not  been  the  victim  and  slave  of  his 
action.  What  they  have  done  commits  and 
enforces  them  to  do  the  same  again.  The  first 
act,  which  was  to  be  an  experiment,  becomes  a 
sacrament.  The  fiery  reformer  embodies  his 
aspiration  in  some  rite  or  covenant,  and  he  and 
his  friends  cleave  to  the  form,  and  lose  the 
aspiration.  The  Quaker  has  established  Quaker- 
ism, the  Shaker  has  established  his  monastery 
and  his  dance ;  and,  although  each  prates  of  spirit, 
there  is  no  spirit,  but  repetition,  which  is  anti- 
spiritual.  But  where  are  his  new  things  of 
to-day  ?  In  actions  of  enthusiasm,  this  drawback 
appears;  but  in  ^ those  lower  activities,  which 
have  no  higher  aim  than  to  make  us  more  com- 
fortable and  more  cowardly,  in  actions  of  cun- 
ning, actions  that  steal  and  lie,  actions  that 
divorce  the  speculative  from  the  practical  faculty, 
and  put  a  ban  on  reason  and  sentiment,  there  is 
nothing  else  but  drawback  and  negation.  The 
Hindoos  write  in  their  sacred  books,  "  Children 
only,  and  not  the  learned,  speak  of  the  specula- 
tive and  the  practical  faculties  as  two.     They  are 


272  "Representative  /Ren 

but  one,  for  both  obtain  the  selfsame  end,  and 
the  place  which  is  gained  by  the  followers  of  the 
one,  is  gained  by  the  followers  of  the  other. 
That  man  seeth,  who  seeth  that  the  speculative 
and  the  practical  doctrines  are  one."  For  great 
action  must  draw  on  the  spiritual  nature.  The 
measure  of  action  is  the  sentiment  from  which  it 
proceeds.  The  greatest  action  may  easily  be  one 
of  the  most  private  circumstances. 

This  disparagement  will  not  come  from  the 
leaders,  but  from  inferior  persons.  The  robust 
gentlemen  who  stand  at  the  head  of  the  practical 
class,  share  the  ideas  of  the  time,  and  have  too 
much  sympathy  with  the  speculative  class.  It  is 
not  from  men  excellent  in  any  kind,  that  dis- 
paragement of  any  other  is  to  be  looked  for. 
With  such,  Talleyrand's  question  is  ever  the  main 
one;  not,  is  he  rich?  is  he  committed?  is  he 
well-meaning?  has  he  this  or  that  faculty?  is  he 
of  the  movement  ?  is  he  of  the  establishment  ? — 
but,  Is  he  any  body  ?  does  he  stand  for  something  ? 
He  must  be  good  of  his  kind.  That  is  all  that 
Talleyrand,  all  that  State-street,  all  that  the 
common  sense  of  mankind  asks.  Be  real  and 
admirable,  not  as  we  know,  but  as  you  know. 
Able  men  do  not  care  in  what  kind  a  man  is  able, 
so  only  that  he  is  able.     A  master  likes  a  master. 


©octbe;  or,  tbc  Tiaritct  273 

and  does  not  stipulate  whether  it  be  orator,  artist, 
craftsman,  or  king. 

Society  has  really  no  graver  interest  than  the 
well-being  of  the  literary  class.  And  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  men  are  cordial  in  their  recognition 
and  welcome  of  intellectual  accomplishments. 
Still  the  writer  does  not  stand  with  us  on  any 
commanding  ground.  I  think  this  to  be  his  own 
fault.  A  pound  passes  for  a  pound.  There  have 
been  times  when  he  was  a  sacred  person ;  he 
wrote  Bibles;  the  first  hymns;  the  codes;  the 
epics;  tragic  songs;  Sibylline  verses;  Chaldean 
oracles;  Laconian  sentences,  inscribed  on  temple 
walls.  Every  word  was  true,  and  woke  the  na- 
tions to  new  life.  He  wrote  without  levity,  and 
without  choice.  ,  Every  word  was  carved  before 
his  eyes,  into  the  earth  and  sky;  and  the  sun  and 
stars  were  only  letters  of  the  same  purport,  and  of 
no  more  necessity.  But  how  can  he  be  honored, 
when  he  does  not  honor  himself;  when  he  loses 
himself  in  the  crowd ;  when  he  is  no  longer  the 
lawgiver,  but  the  sycophant,  ducking  to  the  giddy 
opinion  of  a  reckless  public;  when  he  must  sus- 
tain with  shameless  advocacy  some  bad  govern- 
ment, or  must  bark,  all  the  year  round,  in  opposi- 
tion ;  or  write  conventional  criticism,  or  profligate 
novels ;  or,   at  any  rate,   write  without  thought, 


274  IRcprcsentative  Ubcn 

and  without  recurrence,  by  day  and  by  night,  to 
the  sources  of  inspiration  ? 

Some  reply  to  these  questions  may  be  furnished 
by  looking  over  the  list  of  men  of.  literary  genius 
in  our  age.  Among  these,  no  more  instructive 
name  occurs  than  that  of  Goethe,  to  represent  the 
powers  and  duties  of  the  scholar  or  writer. 

I  described  Bonaparte  as  a  representative  of  the 
popular  external  life  and  aims  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Its  other  half,  its  poet,  is  Goethe,  a  man 
quite  domesticated  in  the  century,  breathing  its 
air,  enjoying  its  fruits,  impossible  at  any  earlier 
time,  and  taking  away,  by  his  colossal  parts,  the 
reproach  of  weakness,  which,  but  for  him,  would 
lie  on  the  intellectual  works  of  the  period.  He 
appears  at  a  time  when  a  general  culture  has  spread 
itself,  and  has  smoothed  down  all  sharp  individual 
traits;  when,  in  the  absence  of  heroic  characters, 
a  social  comfort  and  cooperation  have  come  in. 
There  is  no  poet,  but  scores  of  poetic  writers  ;  no 
Columbus,  but  hundreds  of  post-captains,  with 
transit-telescope,  barometer,  and  concentrated 
soup  and  pemmican  ;  no  Demosthenes,  no  Chat- 
ham, but  any  number  of  clever  parliamentary  and 
forensic  debaters ;  no  prophet  or  saint,  but  col- 
leges of  divinity ;  no  learned  man,  but  learned 
societies,  a  cheap  press,  reading-rooms,  and  book* 


(3oetbe;  or,  tbc  "CClritcr  275 

clubs,  without  number.  There  was  never  such  a 
miscellany  of  facts.  The  world  extends  itself  like 
American  trade.  We  conceive  Greek  or  Roman 
life, — life  in  the  middle  ages, — to  be  a  simple  and 
comprehensible  affair;  but  modern  life  to  respect 
a  multitude  of  things,  which  is  distracting. 

Goethe  was  the  philosopher  of  this  multiplicity  ; 
hundred-handed,  Argus-eyed,  able  and  happy  to 
cope  with  this  rolling  miscellany  of  facts  and 
sciences,  and,  by  his  own  versatility,  to  dispose 
of  them  with  ease ;  a  manly  mind,  unembarrassed 
by  the  variety  of  coats  of  convention  with 
which  life  had  got  encrusted,  easily  able  by  his 
subtlety  to  pierce  these,  and  to  draw  his  strength 
from  nature,  with  which  he  lived  in  full  com- 
munion. What  is  strange,  too,  he  lived  in  a 
small  town,  in  a  pretty  state,  in  a  defeated  state, 
and  in  a  time  when  Germany  played  no  such 
leading  part  in  the  world's  affairs  as  to  swell  the 
bosom  of  her  sons  with  any  metropolitan  pride, 
such  as  might  have  cheered  a  French,  or  English, 
or  once,  a  Roman  or  Attic  genius.  Yet  there  is 
no  trace  of  provincial  limitation  in  his  muse. 
He  is  not  a  debtor  to  his  position,  but  was  born 
with  a  free  and  controlling  genius. 

The  Helena,  or  the  second  part  of  Faust,  is  a 
philosophy  of  literature  set  in  poetry ;  the  work 


276  'Kcprcscntative  Ifben 

of  one  who  found  himself  the  master  of  histories, 
mythologies,  philosophies,  sciences,  and  national 
literatures,  in  the  encyclopaedical  manner  in  which 
modern  erudition,  with  its  international  inter- 
course of  the  whole  earth's  population,  researches 
into  Indian,  Etruscan,  and  all  Cyclopaean  arts, 
geology,  chemistry,  astronomy ;  and  every  one 
of  these  kingdoms  assuming  a  certain  aerial  and 
poetic  character,  by  reason  of  the  multitude. 
One  looks  at  a  king  with  reverence  ;  but  if  one 
should  chance  to  be  at  a  congress  of  kings,  the 
eye  would  take  liberties  with  the  peculiarities 
of  each.  These  are  not  wild  miraculous  songs, 
but  elaborate  forms,  to  which  the  poet  has  con- 
fided the  results  of  eighty  years  of  observation. 
This  reflective  and  critical  wisdom  makes  the 
poem  more  truly  the  flower  of  this  time.  It 
dates  itself.  Still  he  is  a  poet, — poet  of  a  prouder 
laurel  than  any  contemporary,  and,  under  this 
plague  of  microscopes  (for  he  seems  to  see  out 
of  every  pore  of  his  skin),  strikes  the  harp  with 
a  hero's  strength  and  grace. 

The  wonder  of  the  book  is  its  superior  intelli- 
gence. In  the  menstruum  of  this  man's  wit,  the 
past  and  the  present  ages,  and  their  religions, 
politics,  and  modes  of  thinking,  are  dissolved  into 
archetypes  and    ideas.     What   new   mythologies 


Ooetbc;  or,  tbc  xarftcr  277 

sail  through  his  head  !  The  Greeks  said,  that 
Alexander  went  as  far  as  Chaos;  Goethe  went, 
only  the  other  day,  as  far;  and  one  step  farther 
he  hazarded,  and  brought  himself  safe  back. 

There  is  a  heart-cheering  freedom  in  his  si>ecu- 
lation.  The  immense  horizon  which  journeys 
with  us  lends  its  majesties  to  trifles,  and  to  matters 
of  convenience  and  necessity,  as  to  solemn  and 
festal  performances.  He  was  the  soul  of  his 
cgjQtury.  If  that  was  learned,  and  had  become, 
by  population,  compact  organization,  and  drill  of 
parts,  one  great  Exploring  Expedition,  accumu- 
lating a  glut  of  facts  and  fruits  too  fast  for  any 
hitherto-existing  savans  to  classify,  this  man's 
mind  had  ample  chambers  for  the  distribution  of 
all.  He  had  a  power  to  unite  the  detached  atoms 
again  by  their  own  law.  He  has  clothed  our 
modern  existence  with  poetry.  Amid  littleness 
and  detail,  he  detected  the  Genius  of  life,  the  old 
cunning  Proteus,  nestling  close  beside  us,  and 
showed  that  the  dullness  and  prose  we  ascribe  to 
the  age  was  only  another  of  his  masks: — 
"His  very  flight  is  presence  in  disguise:" 
that  he  had  put  off  a  gay  uniform  for  a  fatigue 
dress,  and  was  not  a  whit  less  vivacious  or  rich 
in  Liverpool  or  the  Hague,  than  once  in  Rome 
or  Antioch.     He  sought  him   in  public  squares 


278  *Rcprcscntatix>e  Itscn 

and  main  streets,  in  boulevards  and  hotels ;  and, 
in  the  solidest  kingdom  of  routine  and  the  senses, 
he  showed  the  lurking  daemonic  power ;  that,  in 
actions  of  routine,  a  thread  of  mythology  and 
fable  spins  itself;  and  this,  by  tracing  the  pedi- 
gree of  every  usage  and  practice,  every  institu- 
tion, utensil,  and  means,  home  to  its  origin  in  the 
structure  of  man.  He  had  an  extreme  impatience 
of  conjecture  and  of  rhetoric.  **I  have  guesses 
enough  of  my  own  ;  if  a  man  write  a  book,  let 
him  set  down  only  what  he  knows."  He  writes 
in  the  plainest  and  lowest  tone,  omitting  a  great 
deal  more  than  he  writes,  and  putting  ever  a 
thing  for  a  word.  He  has  explained  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  antique  and  the  modern  spirit 
and  art.  He  has  defined  art,  its  scope  and  laws. 
He  has  said  the  best  things  about  nature  that 
ever  were  said.  He  treats  nature  as  the  old  phi- 
losophers, as  the  seven  wise  masters  did, — and, 
with  whatever  loss  of  French  tabulation  and 
dissection,  poetry  and  humanity  remain  to  us; 
and  they  have  some  doctoral  skill.  Eyes  are 
better,  on  the  whole,  than  telescopes  or  micro- 
scopes. He  has  contributed  a  key  to  many  parts 
of  nature,  through  the  rare  turn  for  unity  and 
simplicity  in  his  mind.  Thus  Goethe  suggested 
the  leading  idea  of  modern  botany,  that  a  leaf,  or 


<5octbc;  or,  tbc  xaritcr  279 

the  eye  of  a  leaf,  is  the  unit  of  botany,  and  that 
every  part  of  the  plant  is  only  a  transformed  leaf 
to  meet  a  new  condition ;  and,  by  varying  the 
conditions,  a  leaf  may  be  converted  into  any 
other  organ,  and  any  other  organ  into  a  leaf. 
In  like  manner,  in  osteology,  he  assumed  that 
one  vertebra  of  the  spine  might  be  considered 
the  unit  of  the  skeleton ;  the  head  was  only  the 
uppermost  vertebra  transformed.  **The  plant 
goes  from  knot  to  knot,  closing,  at  last,  with  the 
flower  and  the  seed.  So  the  tape- worm,  the 
caterpillar,  goes  from  knot  to  knot,  and  closes 
with  the  head.  Men  and  the  higher  animals  are 
built  up  through  the  vertebrae,  the  powers  being 
concentrated  in  the  head."  In  optics,  again,  he 
rejected  the  artificial  theory  of  seven  colors,  and 
considered  that  every  color  was  the  mixture  of 
light  and  darkness  in  new  proportions.  It  is 
really  of  very  little  consequence  what  topic  he 
writes  upon.  He  sees  at  every  pore,  and  has 
a  certain  gravitation  towards  truth.  He  will 
realize  what  you  say.  He  hates  to  be  trifled 
with,  and  to  be  made  to  say  over  again  some  old 
wife's  fable,  that  has  had  possession  of  men's 
faith  these  thousand  years.  He  may  as  well  see 
if  it  is  true  as  another.  He  sifts  it.  I  am  here, 
he  would  say,  to  be  the  measure  and  judge  of 


28o  "Kcprcscntativc  Itsen 

these  things.  Why  should  I  take  them  on  trust  ? 
And,  therefore,  what  he  says  of  religion,  of 
passion,  of  marriage,  of  manners,  of  property,  of 
paper  money,  of  periods  of  beliefs,  of  omens, 
of  luck,  or  whatever  else,  refuses  to  be  forgotten. 
Take  the  most  remarkable  example  that  could 
occur  of  this  tendency  to  verify  every  term  in 
popular  use.  The  Devil  had  played  an  important 
part  in  mythology  in  all  times.  Goethe  would 
have  no  word  that  does  not  cover  a  thing.  The 
same  measure  will  still  serve:  **I  have  never 
heard  of  any  crime  which  I  might  not  have 
committed."  So  he  flies  at  the  throat  of  this 
imp.  He  shall  be  real ;  he  shall  be  modern  ;  he 
shall  be  European ;  he  shall  dress  like  a  gentle- 
man, and  accept  the  manner,  and  walk  in  the 
streets,  and  be  well  initiated  in  the  life  of  Vienna, 
and  of  Heidelberg,  in  1820, — or  he  shall  not 
exist.  Accordingly,  he  stripped  him  of  mytho- 
logic  gear,  of  horns,  cloven  foot,  harpoon  tail, 
brimstone,  and  blue-fire,  and,  instead  of  looking 
in  books  and  pictures,  looked  for  him  in  his  own 
mind,  in  every  shade  of  coldness,  selfishness,  and 
unbelief  that,  in  crowds,  or  in  solitude,  darkens 
over  the  human  thought, — and  found  that  the 
portrait  gained  reality  and  terror  by  every  thing 
he  added,  and  by  every  thing  he  took  away.     He 


(Soctbe;  or,  tbc  TOlcitcr  281 

found  that  the  essence  of  this  hobgoblin,  which 
had  hovered  in  shadow  about  the  habitations  of 
men,  ever  since  they  were  men,  was  pure  intel- 
lect, applied, — as  always  there  is  a  tendency, — 
to  the  service  of  the  senses :  and  he  flung  into 
literature,  in  his  Mephistopheles,  the  first  organic 
figure  that  has  been  added  for  some  ages,  and 
which  will  remain  as  long  as  the  Prometheus. 

I  have  no  design  to  enter  into  any  analysis  of 
his  numerous  works.  They  consist  of  transla- 
tions, criticism,  dramas,  lyric  and  every  other 
description  'of  poems,  literary  journals,  and  por- 
traits of  distinguished  men.  Yet  I  cannot  omit 
to  specify  the  Wilhelm  Meister. 

Wilhelm  Meister  is  a  novel  in  every  sense,  the 
first  of  its  kmd,  called  by  its  admirers  the  only 
delineation  of  modern  society, — as  if  other  novels, 
those  of  Scott,  for  example,  dealt  with  costume 
and  condition,  this  with  the  spirit  of  life.  It  is 
a  book  over  which  some  veil  is  still  drawn.  It 
is  read  by  very  intelligent  persons  with  wonder 
and  delight.  It  is  preferred  by  some  such  to 
Hamlet,  as  a  work  of  genius.  I  suppose,  no  book 
of  this  century  can  compare  with  it  in  its  delicious 
sweetness,  so  new,  so  provoking  to  the  mind, 
gratifying  it  with  so  many  and  so  solid  thoughts, 
just  insights  into  life,  and  manners,  and  characters ; 


282  •Representative  ^en 

so  many  good  hints  for  the  conduct  of  life,  so 
many  unexpected  glimpses  into  a  higher  sphere, 
and  never  a  trace  of  rhetoric  or  dulness.  A  very 
provoking  book  to  the  curiosity  of  young  men 
of  genius,  but  a  very  unsatisfactory  one.  Lovers 
of  light  reading,  those  who  look  in  it  for  the 
entertainment  they  find  in  a  romance,  are  disap- 
pointed. On  the  other  hand,  those  who  begin  it 
with  the  higher  hope  to  read  in  it  a  worthy 
history  of  genius,  and  the  just  award  of  the 
laurel  to  its  toils  and  denials,  have  also  reason  to 
complain.  We  had  an  English  romance  here,  not 
long  ago,  professing  to  embody  the  hope  of  a 
new  age,  and  to  unfold  the  political  hope  of  the 
party  called  **  Young  England,"  in  which  the  only 
reward  of  virtue  is  a  seat  in  parliament,  and  a 
peerage.  Goethe's  romance  has  a  conclusion  as 
lame  and  immoral.  George  Sand,  in  Coiisuelo 
and  its  continuation,  has  sketched  a  truer  and  more 
dignified  picture.  In  the  progress  of  the  story, 
the  characters  of  the  hero  and  heroine  expand  at 
a  rate  that  shivers  the  porcelain  chess-table  of 
aristocratic  convention  :  they  quit  the  society  and 
habits  of  their  rank;  they  lose  their  wealth  ;  they 
become  the  servants  of  great  ideas,  and  of  the 
most  generous  social  ends ;  until,  at  last,  the  hero, 
who  is  the  centre  and  fountain  of  an  association 


(3oetbe;  or,  tbc  "(IClrltcr  283 

for  the  rendering  of  the  noblest  benefits  to  the 
human  race,  no  longer  answers  to  his  own  titled 
name:  it  sounds  foreign  and  remote  in  his  ear. 
*'  I  am  only  man,"  he  says  ;  "  I  breathe  and  work 
for  man,"  and  this  in  poverty  and  extreme  sacri- 
fices. Goethe's  hero,  on  the  contrary,  has  so  many 
weaknesses  and  impurities,  and  keeps  such  bad 
company,  that  the  sober  English  public,  when 
the  book  was  translated,  were  disgusted.  And 
yet  it  is  so  crammed  with  wisdom,  with  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  and  with  knowledge  of  laws; 
the  persons  so  truly  and  subtly  drawn,  and  with 
such  few  strokes,  and  not  a  word  too  much,  the 
book  remains  ever  so  new  and  unexhausted,  that  we 
must  even  let  it  go  its  way,  and  be  willing  to 
get  what  good  from  it  we  can,  assured  that  it  has 
only  begun  its  office,  and  has  millions  of  readers 
yet  to  serve. 

The  argument  is  the  passage  of  a  democrat  to 
the  aristocracy,  using  both  words  in  their  best 
sense.  And  this  passage  is  not  made  in  any  mean 
or  creeping  way,  but  through  the  hall  door.  Na- 
ture and  character  assist,  and  the  rank  is  made 
real  by  sense  and  probity  in  the  nobles.  No  gen- 
erous youth  can  escape  this  charm  of  reality  in 
the  book,  so  that  it  is  highly  stimulating  to  intel- 
lect and  courage. 


284  "Representative  Aen 

The  ardent  and  holy  Novalis  characterized  the 
book  as  "  thoroughly  modern  and  prosaic;  the 
romantic  is  completely  levelled  in  it ;  so  is  the 
poetry  of  nature ;  the  wonderful.  The  book 
treats  only  of  the  ordinary  affairs  of  men  :  it  is  a 
poeticized  civic  and  domestic  story.  The  won- 
derful in  it  is  expressly  treated  as  fiction  and  en- 
thusiastic dreaming:" — and  yet,  what  is  also 
characteristic,  Novalis  soon  returned  to  this  book, 
and  it  remained  his  favorite  reading  to  the  end  of 
his  life. 

What  distinguishes  Goethe  for  French  and 
English  readers,  is  a  property  which  he  shares 
with  his  nation, — a  habitual  reference  to  interior 
truth.  In  England  and  in  America,  there  is  a  re- 
spect for  talent ;  and,  if  it  is  exerted  in  support  of 
any  ascertained  or  intelligible  interest  or  party,  or 
in  regular  opposition  to  any,  the  public  is  satisfied. 
In  France,  there  is  even  a  greater  delight  in  intel- 
lectual brilliancy,  for  its  own  sake.  And,  in  all 
these  countries,  men  of  talent  write  from  talent. 
It  is  enough  if  the  understanding  is  occupied,  the 
taste  propitiated, — so  many  columns  so  many 
hours,  filled  in  a  lively  and  creditable  way.  The 
German  intellect  wants  the  French  sprightliness^ 
the  fine  practical  understanding  of  the  English, 
and  the  American  adventure  ;  but  it  has  a  certain 


Ooetbe;  or,  tbe  TIClrtter  285 

probity,  which  never  rests  in  a  superficial  per- 
formance, but  asks  steadily.  To  what  end?  A 
German  public  asks  for  a  controlling  sincerity. 
Here  is  activity  of  thought  ;  but  what  is  it  for  ? 
What  does  the  man  mean  ?  Whence,  whence,  all 
these  thoughts? 

Talent  alone  cannot  make  a  writer.  There 
must  be  a  man  behind  the  book  ;  a  personality 
which,  by  birth  and  quality,  is  pledged  to  the 
doctrines  there  set  forth,  and  which  exists  to  see 
and  state  things  so,  and  not  otherwise ;  holding 
things  because  they  are  things.  If  he  can  not 
rightly  express  himself  to-day,  the  same  things 
subsist,  and  will  open  themselves  to-morrow. 
There  lies  the  burden  on  his  mind, — the  burden 
of  truth  to  be  declared, — more  or  less  understood  ; 
and  it  constitutes  his  business  and  calling  in  the 
world,  to  see  those  facts  through,  and  to  make 
them  known.  What  signifies  that  he  trips  and 
stammers  ;  that  his  voice  is  harsh  or  hissing  ;  that 
his  method  or  his  tropes  are  inadequate  ?  That 
message  will  find  method  and  imagery,  articula- 
tion and  melody.  Though  he  were  dumb,  it 
would  speak.  If  not, — if  there  be  no  such  God's 
word  in  the  man, — what  care  we  how  adroit,  how 
fluent,  how  brilliant  he  is  ? 

It  makes  a  great  difference  to  the  force  of  any 
19 


286  •Representative  ^en 

sentence,  whether  there  be  a  man  behind  it,  or  no. 
In  the  learned  journal,  in  the  influential  news- 
paper, I  discern  no  form  ;  only  some  irresponsible 
shadow;  oftener  some  monied  corporation,  or 
some  dangler,  who  hopes,  in  the  mask  and  robes  of 
his  paragraph,  to  pass  for  somebody.  But, 
through  every  clause  and  part  of  speech  of  a  right 
book,  I  meet  the  eyes  of  the  most  determined  of 
men  :  his  force  and  terror  inundate  every  word  : 
the  commas  and  dashes  are  alive ;  so  that  the 
writing  is  athletic  and  nimble, — can  go  far  and 
live  long. 

In  England  and  America,  one  may  be  an  adept 
in  the  writing  of  a  Greek  or  Latin  poet,  without 
any  poetic  taste  or  fire.  That  a  man  has  spent 
years  on  Plato  and  Proclus,  does  not  afford  a  pre- 
sumption that  he  holds  heroic  opinions,  or  under- 
values the  fashions  of  his  town.  But  the  German 
nation  have  the  most  ridiculous  good  faith  on 
these  subjects :  the  student,  out  of  the  lecture- 
room,  still  broods  on  the  lessons;  and  the  profes- 
sor can  not  divest  himself  of  the  fancy,  that  the 
truths  of  philosophy  have  some  application  to  Ber- 
lin and  Munich.  This  earnestness  enables  them 
to  out-see  men  of  much  more  talent.  Hence, 
almost  all  the  valuable  distinctions  which  are  cur- 
rent in  higher  conversation,  have  been  derived  to 


(3octbe;  or,  tbc  'CClrftcr  287 

us  from  Germany.  But,  whilst  men  distinguished 
for  wit  and  learning,  in  England  and  France, 
adopt  their  study  and  their  side  with  a  certain  lev- 
ity, and  are  not  understood  to  be  very  deeply  en- 
gaged, from  grounds  of  character,  to  the  topic  or 
the  part  they  espouse, — Goethe,  the  head  and 
body  of  the  German  nation,  does  not  speak 
from  talent,  but  the  truth  shines  through :  he  is 
very  wise,  though  his  talent  often  veils  his  wisdom. 
However  excellent  his  sentence  is,  he  has  some- 
what better  in  view.  It  awakens  my  curios- 
ity. He  has  the  formidable  independence  which 
converse  with  truth  gives :  hear  you,  or  forbear, 
his  fact  abides ;  and  your  interest  in  the  writer 
is  not  confined  to  his  story,  and  he  dismissed 
from  memory,  when  he  has  performed  his  task 
creditably,  as  a  baker  when  he  has  left  his 
loaf;  but  his  work  is  the  least  part  of  him. 
The  old  Eternal  Genius  who  built  the  world 
has  confided  himself  more  to  this  man  than  to 
any  other.  I  dare  not  say  that  Goethe  ascended 
to  the  highest  grounds  from  which  genius  has 
spoken.  He  has  not  worshipped  the  highest  unity ; 
he  is_incapable  of  a  self- surrender  to  the  moral 
sentiment.  There  are  nobler  strains  in  poetry 
than  any  he  has  sounded.  There  are  writers 
poorer  in  talent,  whose  tone  is  purer,  and  more 


288  •Representative  flben 

touches  the  heart.  Goethe  can  never  be  dear  to 
men.  His  is  not  even  the  devotion  to  pure  truth ; 
but  to  truth  for  the  sake  of  culture.  He  has  no 
aims  less  large  than  the  conquest  of  universal  na- 
ture, of  universal  truth,  to  be  his  portion  ;  a  man 
not  to  be  bribed,  nor  deceived,  nor  overawed  ;  of 
a  stoical  self-command  and  self-denial,  and  having 
one  test  for  all  men, —  WTiat  can  you  teach  me? 
All  possessions  are  valued  by  him  for  that  only ; 
rank,  privileges,  health,  time,  being  itself. 

He  is  the  type  of  culture,  the  amateur  of  all 
arts,  and  sciences,  and  events;  artistic,  but  not 
Wtist;  spiritual,  but  not  spiritualist.  '  There  is 
nothing  he  had  not  right  to  know;  there  is  no 
weapon  in  the  army  of  universal  genius  he  did 
not  take  into  his  hand,  but  with  peremptory  heed 
that  he  should  not  be  for  a  moment  prejudiced 
by  his  instruments.  He  lays  a  ray  of  light  under 
every  fact,  and  between  himself  and  his  dearest 
property.  From  him  nothing  was  hid,  nothing 
withholden.  The  lurking  daemons  sat  to  him, 
and  the  saint  who  saw  the  daemons;  and  the 
metaphysical  elements  took  form.  "Piety  itself  is 
no  aim,  but  only  a  means,  whereby,  through  pur- 
est inward  peace,  we  may  attain  to  highest  cul- 
ture." And  his  penetration  of  every  secret  of  the 
fine  arts  will  make  Goethe  still  more  statuesque. 


(3oetbc;  or,  tbe  "CCldtcr  289 

His  affections  help  him,  like  women  employed  by 
Cicero  to  worm  out  the  secret  of  conspirators. 
Enmities  he  has  none.  Enemy  of  him  you  may 
be, — if  so  you  shall  teach  him  aught  which  your 
good-will  can  not, — were  it  only  what  experience 
will  accrue  from  your  ruin.  Enemy  and  welcome, 
but  enemy  on  high  terms.  He  can  not  hate  any- 
body; his  time  is  worth  too  much.  Tempera- 
mental antagonisms  maybe  suffered,  but  like  feuds 
of  emperors,  who  fight  dignifiedly  across  king- 
doms. 

His  autobiography,  under  the  title  of  "Poetry 
and  Truth  Out  of  My  Life,"  is  the  expression  of 
the  idea, — now  familiar  to  the  world  through  the 
German  mind,  but  a  novelty  to  England,  Old  and 
New,  when  that  book  appeared, — that  a  man  exists 
for  culture ;  not  for  what  he  can  accomplish,  bilt 
for  what  can  be  accomplished  in  him.  ITie 
reaction  of  things  on  the  man  is  the  only  note- 
worthy result.  An  intellectual  man  can  see  him- 
self as  a  third  person;  therefore  his  faults  and 
delusions  interest  him  equally  with  his  successes. 
Though  he  wishes  to  prosper  in  affairs,  he  wishes 
more  to  know  the  history  and  destiny  of  man ; 
whilst  the  clouds  of  egotists  drifting  about  him 
are  only  interested  in  a  low  success. 

This   idea  reigns  in  the   Dichtung  und  Wahr^ 


ago  "Rcprescntatfvc  ftsen 

heitj  and  directs  the  selection  of  the  incidents ; 
and  nowise  the  external  importance  of  events, 
the  rank  of  the  personages,  or  the  bulk  of  incomes. 
Of  course,  the  book  affords  slender  materials  for 
what  would  be  reckoned  with  us  a  *'  Life  of 
Goethe;" — few  dates;  no  correspondence;  no 
details  of  offices  or  employments;  no  light  on 
his  marriage ;  and,  a  period  of  ten  years,  that 
should  be  the  most  active  in  his  life,  after  his 
settlement  at  Weimar,  is  sunk  in  silence.  Mean- 
time, certain  love-affairs,  that  came  to  nothing,  as 
people  say,  have  the  strangest  importance:  he 
crowds  us  with  detail : — certain  whimsical  opin- 
ions, cosmogonies,  and  religions  of  his  own  in- 
vention, and,  especially  his  relations  to  remarkable 
cninds,  and  to  critical  epochs  of  thought ; — these  he 
magnifies.  His  *'  Daily  and  Yearly  Journal,"  his 
"  Italian  Travels,"  his '*  Campaign  in  France," 
and  the  historical  part  of  his  '^Theory  of  Colors," 
have  the  same  interest.  In  the  last,  he  rapidly 
notices  Keplar,  Roger  Bacon,  Galileo,  Newton, 
Voltaire,  &c. ;  and  the  charm  of  this  portion  of 
the  book  consists  in  the  simplest  statement  of  the 
relation  betwixt  these  grandees  of"  European 
scientific  history  and  himself;  the  mere  drawing 
of  the  lines  from  Goethe  to  Keplar,  from  Goethe 
to  Bacon,  from  Goethe  to  Newton.     The  draw- 


Ooetbc;  or,  tbc  Taaritcr  291 

ing  of  the  line  is  for  the  time  and  person,  a  solu- 
tion of  the  formidable  problem,  and  gives  pleasure 
when  Iphigenia  and  Faust  do  not,  without  any- 
cost  of  invention  comparable  to  that  of  Iphigenia 
and  Faust. 

This  lawgiver  of  art  is  not  an  artist.  Was  it 
that  he  knew  too  much,  that  his  sight  was  micro- 
scopic, and  interfered  with  the  just  perspective, 
the  seeing  of  the  whole?  He  is  fragmentary; 
a  writer  of  occasional  poems,  and  of  an  encyclo- 
paedia of  sentences.  When  he  sits  down  to 
write  a  drama  or  a  tale,  he  collects  and  sorts  his 
observations  from  a  hundred  sides,  and  combines 
them  into  the  body  as  fitly  as  he  can.  A  great 
deal  refuses  to  incorporate :  this  he  adds  loosely, 
as  letters  of  the  parties,  leaves  from  their  journals, 
or  the  like.  A  great  deal  still  is  left  that  will  not 
find  any  place.  This  the  bookbinder  alone  can 
give  any  cohesion  to :  and,  hence,  notwithstand- 
ing the  looseness  of  many  of  his  works,  we 
have  volumes  of  detached  paragraphs,  aphorisms, 
xenien,  &c. 

I  suppose  the  worldly  tone  of  his  tales  grew 
out  of  the  calculations  of  self-culture.  It  was 
the  infirmity  of  an  admirable  scholar,  who  loved 
the  world  out  of  gratitude ;  who  knew  where 
libraries,  galleries,  architecture,  laboratories,  sa- 


292  "Representative  Aen 

vans,  and  leisure,  were  to  be  had,  and  who  did 
not  quite  trust  the  compensations  of  poverty  and 
nakedness.  Socrates  loved  Athens ;  Montaigne, 
Paris;  and  Madame  de  Stael  said,  she  was  only 
vulnerable  on  that  side  (namely,  of  Paris).  It 
has  its  favorable  aspect.  All  the  geniuses  are 
usually  so  ill-assorted  and  sickly,  that  one  is  ever 
wishing  them  somewhere  else.  We  seldom  see 
any  body  who  is  not  uneasy  or  afraid  to  live. 
There  is  a  slight  blush  of  shame  on  the  cheek 
of  good  men  and  aspiring  men,  and  a  spice  of 
caricature.  But  this  man  was  entirely  at  home 
and  happy  in  his  century  and  the  world.  None 
was  so  fit  to  live,  or  more  heartly  enjoyed  the 
game.  In  this  aim  of  culture,  which  is  the  genius 
of  his  works,  is  their  power.  The  idea  of  abso- 
lute, eternal  truth,  without  reference  to  my  own 
enlargement  by  it,  is  higher.  The  surrender  to 
the  torrent  of  poetic  inspiration  is  higher;  but 
compared  with  any  motives  on  which  books  are 
written  in  England  and  America,  this  is  very 
truth,  and  has  the  power  to  inspire  which  belongs 
to  truth.  Thus  has  he  brought  back  to  a  book 
some  of  its  ancient  might  and  dignity. 

Goethe,  coming  into  an  over-civilized  time  and 
country,  when  original  talent  was  oppressed  under 
the  load  of  books,  and  mechanical  auxiliaries,  and 


0oetbe;  or,  tbe  'CQriter  293 

the  distracting  variety  of  claims,  taught  men  how 
to  dispose  of  this  mountainous  miscellany,  and  / 
make  it  subservient.  I  join  Napoleon  with  him, 
as  being  both  representatives  of  the  impatience 
and  reaction  of  nature  against  the  morgue  of 
conventions, — two  stem  realists,  who,  with  their 
scholars,  have  severally  set  the  axe  at  the  root 
of  the  tree  of  cant  and  seeming,  for  this  time, 
and  for  all  time.  This  cheerful  laborer,  with  no 
extem.-U  popularity  or  provocation,  drawing  his 
motive  and  his  plan  from  his  own  breast,  tasked 
himself  with  stints  for  a  giant,  and,  without 
relaxation  or  rest,  except  by  alternating  his  pur- 
suits, worked  on  for  eighty  years  with  the  steadi- 
ness of  his  first  zeal. 

It  is  the  last  lesson  of  modem  science,  that  the 
highest  simplicity  of  structure  is  produced,  not 
by  few  elements,  but  by  the  highest  complexity. 
Man  is  the  most  composite  of  all  creatures :  the 
wheel-insect,  vohax  globaior,  is  at  the  other  ex- 
treme. We  shall  learn  to  draw  rents  and  reve- 
nues from  the  immense  patrimony  of  the  old  and 
the  recent  ages.  Goethe  teaches  courage,  and  the 
equivalence  of  all  times :  that  the  disadvantages 
of  any  epoch  exist  only  to  the  faint-hearted. 
Genius  hovers  with  his  sunshine  and  music  close 
by  the  darkest  and   deafest  eras.     No  mortgage, 


294  "Reprcacntatfve  flSen 

no  attainder,  will  hold  on  men  or  hours.  The 
world  is  young ;  the  former  great  men  call  to  us 
affectionately.  We  too  must  write  Bibles,  to  unite 
again  the  heavens  and  the  earthly  world.  The 
secret  of  genius  is  to  suffer  no  fiction  to  exist  for 
us;  to  realize  all  that  we  know;  in  the  high 
refinement  of  modern  life,  in  arts,  in  sciences,  in 
books,  in  men,  to  exact  good  faith,  reality,  and 
a  purpose;  and  first,  last,  midst,  and  without  end, 
to  honor  every  truth  by  use. 

THE    END. 


Zbc  Bltcmua  Xlbrarij 

A  choice  collection  of  Standard  and  Popular  books^ 
handsomely  printed  on  fine  paper,  from  large  clear  type, 
and  bound  in  handy  Tolume  size  in  faultless  styles  : 

I.  Sesame    and    Lilies.     Three    lectures.     By   Joha 
Kuskin. 

I.  Of  King's  Treasuries. 
II.  Of  Queen's  Gardens. 
III.  Of  the  Mystery  of  Life. 
^  The  Pleasures  of    Life.     By  Sir  John   Lubbock, 
M.  P.,  F.  R.  S.,  D.  C.  L.,  LL.  D.      Complete 
in  one  Tolume. 

3.  The  Essays  of  Lord  Fnmds  Bacon,  with  M^moti» 

and  Notes. 

4.  Thoughts  of  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  Anto- 

ninus.    Translated  by  George  Lon{» 

5.  A  Selection  from  the  Discourses  of  Epictetus  with 

the  Encheridion.     Translated  by  George  Long. 

6.  Essays,  First  Series.     By  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

7.  Essajrs,  Second  Series.     By  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

8.  Cranford.     By  Mrs.  Gaskell. 

9.  Of  the   Imitation  of  Christ.      Four  books  conK 

plete  in  one  volume.     By  Thomas  A  Kempis. 

la  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.     By  Oliver  Goldsmith. 

XI.  Letters,  Sentences  and  Maxims.  By  Lord  Ches- 
terfield. "  Masterpieces  of  good  taste,  good 
writing,  and  good  sense." 

12.  The  Idle  Thoughts  of  an  Idle  Fellow.     By  Jerome 

K.  Jerome.     A  book  for  an  Idle  Holiday. 

13.  Tales  from  Shakespeare.     By  Charles  and  Mary 

Lamb,  with   an   introduction   by   Rev.   Alfred 
Ainger,  M.  A 


TTbe  aitemua  XtDraru. 

14.  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World.  By  Henry 
Drummond,  F.  R.  S.  E.,  F.  G.  S.  The  rela- 
tions of  Science  and  Religion  clearly  expounded. 

J  5.  Addresses.  By  Henry  Drummond,  F.  R.  S.  E., 
F,  G.  S.  The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World; 
PaxVobiscum;  The  Changed  Life;  How  to 
Learn  How;  Dealing  with  Doubt;  Prepara- 
tion for  Learning ;  What  is  a  Christian  ?  The 
Study  of  the  Bible;  A  Talk  on  Books. 

16.  "My  Point  of  View."     Representative  selections 

from  the  works  of  Professor  Drummond.     By 
William  Shepard. 

17.  The  Scarlet  Letter.     By  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

J  8.  Representative  Men.  Seven  lectures.  By  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson. 

19.  My  King  and  His  Service.  By  Frances  Ridley 
Havergal.  Containing — My  King;  Royd 
Commandments ;  Royal  Bounty ;  Royal  Invi- 
tation ;  Loyal  Responses. 

ao.  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.  By  Ik  MarveL  A  Book 
of  the  Heart. 

ai.  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  By  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne. 

-22.  Dream  Life.  By  Ik  Marvel.  A  Companion 
volume  to  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor. 

23.  Rab  and  His  Friends,  Marjorie  Fleming,  etc. 
By  John  Brown. 

-24.  Essays  of  Elia.     By  Charles  Lamb. 

^5.  Sartor  Resartus.     By  Thomas  Carlyle. 

iz6.  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship.     By  Thomas  Carlyle. 


